The Enduring Chill
What a short story says about public health today.
In 1965, Flannery O'Connor published "The Enduring Chill," a short story about an elitist little aspiring writer named Asbury. Flannery had her own biases and prejudices, but she routinely nailed stupidity. The chronicles of human stupidity from those stories I was assigned in high school and college have stayed with me. We keep living them.
What's so bad about Asbury?
Well, Asbury moves back to his family's farm after bankrupting himself in the big city. He acts like he knows everything, constantly talking down to everyone around him, especially his mom. Oh, and he thinks he's dying.
He has a mysterious illness.
Halfway through the story, Flannery slides in this little flashback where Asbury disobeys his mom's direct orders.
He drinks raw milk.
Asbury does it in the most arrogant way possible, in front of the dairy workers, even trying to get them to join his rebellion. They don't. They just stand there staring at him, biting their tongues.
Back in the present, Asbury's illness drives him to his deathbed, where he tries to have some kind of "intellectual" discussion with a pastor who just slaps him around for wasting his time. Finally, a doctor diagnoses Asbury with undulant fever, otherwise known as Brucellosis.
It's a zoonotic disease you can pick up from, you guessed it...
Raw milk.
Undulant fever feels like an extreme flu. You can treat it, but it can recur. That's the worst part of the whole thing.
A few years after reading, "The Enduring Chill," I dated a raw milk enthusiast. It was my first clue he might be like Asbury.
I was right.