Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries Read Online Free PDF Page B

as the publishing capital of the United States. With ties to Paris strained during the war, New York department stores and Fifth Avenue shops became the best shopping in the world. And Harlem and the nightclub scene began to place New York at the focal point of modern music. In the coming decade, the introduction of radio would lend a voice to the vibrant image of the city. Radio, broadcast almost entirely out of New York, would carry the stories of the city’s speakeasies, gangsters, socialites, millionaires, politicians, artists, and musicians to the rest of the country.
    As the great decade of the 1920s approached, that evolving, modern metropolis was becoming the golden city F. Scott Fitzgerald would write about. New York has often been described as a city of light and dark, and during that time period it was radiant—the same way trees appear brighter when backlit by a storm.
     
     
     
    A wind, cold as quicksilver, swept the length of the sidewalks in New York City. Pedestrians hovered against the walls of buildings and held tight to their bowler hats. The 1917—18 winter was the coldest New York had seen in a generation. In December, all records were broken when temperatures dropped thirteen below zero. Snow blanketed the city by January, killing a large number of trees in Central Park, their ice-laden limbs snapping and cracking. The cold fractured railway lines, froze the switches, and turned coal to solid blocks of black ice. It wasn’t just the trains that were stalled, but also the ships. Dozens sat in the harbor like metallic icebergs bobbing among the floes.
    As the temperatures plummeted, coal rationing started. Coal had already been a scarce commodity during the war, but with few shipments arriving in New York, and with those that did encased in ice, the situation was becoming dire. “Workless Mondays” were issued to keep most businesses, including the New York Stock Exchange, closed one additional day per week to prevent further use of coal.
    Dr. Frederick Tilney walked out of his office one icy day in the middle of January. A colorless sky was punctuated by milky clouds and white gulls hanging on the wind over the Hudson River. Tilney always visited patients in the morning so he could keep his afternoons and evenings free for research.
    He left his townhouse on Fifth Avenue, stepping through piles of gray snow and splintering frozen mud puddles every few steps. On the sidewalks, snow had been collecting and graying, and icicles hung from shop awnings. The memory of a fresh snow was now replaced with the reality of piles of slush fouled by ash, horse manure, and litter.
    In spite of the strong scent of refuse, the harsh cold only sharpened the smell of roasting chestnuts in the handcarts, coffee at the lunch counters, tobacco smoke, and coal-burning fires. In the distance, lonely ship sirens sounded, and church bells marked the hour. The snow had quieted everything, and the city itself seemed to absorb all sound and motion.
    Tilney walked past five-and-ten stores, United tobacco, hand laundries, shoe repairs, millineries, drug and soda shops, linen and handkerchief stores, tailors. But the cold air had closed most of the newsstands and the carts selling wares.
    As he stood at the edge of the street, Tilney paused cautiously to watch the traffic, the steady flow of automobiles rolling through the snow. On the streets that were paved, they sounded like wooden sleds slicing through an icy hillside. More than the weather had created a sense of chaos on the streets. Streetcars ran along tracks, cars and double-decker buses wove in and out of any free space, and then there were horse-drawn buggies. With no real lanes and no speed limits that could accommodate that many modes of transportation, New York streets were chaotic. The ice only slowed the chaos.
    As he crossed the street, Tilney hunched his shoulders and pocketed his hands against the wind gusts. He was clean-shaven, as he always was; Tilney