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a high fever, headache, generally altered consciousness and a large necrotic wound at the site of the bite. My flesh was dying. Fully insured, and fully certain I would soon expire, I visited my primary care physician, who immediately sent me to my neighborhood emergency room at Beth Israel. I was the most popular patient there. The pages went out through the hospital almost as soon as I arrived; everybody came to see me. I felt as if I'd won a prize, although it soon became clear that my only accomplishment was not the kind you want to have.

Had I been out of the country? the doctors wanted to know. Last summer, Thailand, but surely this can't be related. Might I have been shot? I hope not, but there's always the possibility. Did I work at the post office? Sometimes, when the lines are really long, it seems as if I do, but no. Somebody said something about cutaneous anthrax (it was big that year), but the notion was soon dismissed. Finally the head man came in, and after securing my permission to take photos for educational purposes, announced that he didn't know for sure but suggested that most likely I had been bitten by one