The Huckleby Hogs Summary and Analysis

Three children in Alamogordo, New Mexico, members of a family of nine, were seriously ill. The Director of the Public Health Department called upon the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta for assistance. Symptoms presented included vision and walking difficulties, strange behavior, and, eventually, coma, all of which could be the result of some type of encephalitis. The season was winter, however, and the ticks and mosquitoes which would normally carry this disease were dormant. Still, the characteristics indicated some type of brain inflammation. Another important piece of information was that the family raised hogs and, several months prior to the illness, a number of the hogs had become ill and died. If the disease had come from an infected hog which had been consumed, however, the issue of why other family members were not also ill...