Camptown Rabies

Camptown Rabies isn't actually a form of rabies. It's a degenerative mental disease brought about not by animals, but by plants. Most scientists agree that there is an inconsistency in the cell walls of these plants that cause them to take on animal characteristics. These characteristics run the gamut from hypochondria to hating a once loved neighbor. In humans, the disease is not fatal, but it does lead to an array of problems such as emotional distress, memory loss, and general sociopathology.

The name, Campton Rabies, comes from Stephen Foster's famous "Camptown Ladies" (AKA "Camptown Races"), a popular song from the mid to late 19th century. Scientists decided on this allusion for two reasons. The obvious first reason is that the disease was discovered in Campton, Delaware and was initially thought to be a simple form of rabies. The second reason actually comes from a line in the song itself that reads: "Goin' to run all day, goin' to run all night." This tireless energy would be the first sign that the human was infected, followed by random acts of violence and dehydration.

Incidentally, Camptown Rabies is also the name of a poem that was written in the mid-1970's by a frustrated youth named Paul Santerfield. The poem describes the song "Camptown Ladies" from the perspective of a rabid dog and it won Santerfield no friends in the English department of his university. However, the poem was eventually published in 1982 after he had become one of the best-selling authors of all time. Many scholars consider "Camptown Rabies" to be Santerfield's most frustrating work.

Your correspondent digresses...

In what has become the greatest signifier of universal consciousness, a human must only think about a plant that has Camptown Rabies in order to become infected. This amazing process has killed or driven insane most of the scientists on the project. In fact, only scientists with amazing skills of concentration are allowed access to key information.

Fortunately, most people have never heard of Camptown Rabies (the disease or the poem).