33 pages • 1 hour read
The Demon in the Freezer
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BetaChapter 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: A Woman with a Peaceful Life
The title "A Woman with a Peaceful Life" refers directly to Lisa Hensley, a USAMRIID researcher who was one of Peter Jahrling's younger colleagues. Hensley's father, Michael Hensley, was active in pharmaceutical research and in finding ways to understand and treat HIV; though Hensley herself was not always studious, she did attend Johns Hopkins (in part to play on its lacrosse team). However, Hensley's close relationship with her father led her to academic interests that resembled his, and after leaving Johns Hopkins, she earned a Ph.D. in a disease-related specialty (epidemiology, microbiology) from UNC Chapel Hill. She then went to work at USAMRIID, first on SHF (a monkey-borne virus) and then on Ebola.
Hensley found that life as an Ebola researcher had both amusing and anxiety-ridden moments. She was trained by Steve Hatfill, a doctor who had at one point served with the U.S. Special Forces and who would eat candy bars even while wearing his "blue suit," the USAMRIID full-body apparel needed for working with live viruses and bacteria. She also had a brief panic when she thought (mistakenly, as it turned out) that she had punctured both her blue suit and the safety glove underneath in the presence of live Ebola. Two of Hensley's fellow researchers, Tom and Joan Geisbert, provided valuable moral support during this worrying incident. Even as she continued in her work and earned a reputation as one of the Institute's rising stars, Hensley began to yearn for a more fulfilling personal life, one that would include a family of her own. Her attempts to date other scientists had mostly ended in tension and disappointment; fortunately, she met Rob Tealle, who worked mostly on building projects and whom she began dating regularly.
In 2000, Peter Jahrling put together a research initiative that involved infecting monkeys with smallpox. With a team of researchers that included Hensley, he traveled to the CDC facility in Atlanta in order to access the virus. Jahrling was careful not to give Hensley too much visibility in the project--not because he questioned the quality of her work, but because he did not want the CDC to poach an excellent USAMRIID scientist. The initial results of the monkey experiment indicated that the animals would not be vulnerable to smallpox. Soon, however, Jahrling made a significant and concerning discovery: Australian scientists led by Ron Jackson had altered a mousepox virus that could break through vaccines and destroy supposedly resistant mice. With this information in mind, Jahrling returned anew to his project of infecting the monkeys, exposing the animals to enormous doses of different virus strains. Then began a waiting process for Jahrling, Hensley, and their colleagues, who would watch and see if the human-oriented virus could take hold.
Chapter 6 Summary: The Demon’s Eyes
After completing the setup for the experiment involving monkeys exposed to smallpox, Peter Jahrling departs from the CDC, leaving Lisa Hensley behind to monitor the animals. The monkeys have been brought into contact with different strains known as India and Harper. Around three or four days after exposure, monkeys exposed to the India strain begin dropping dead; Hensley and another researcher, Mark Martinez, perform the necropsy for each early casualty. The Harper strain also proves especially potent, killing off the monkeys exposed to it in short order—with one exception, a male monkey whom the researchers name Harper. Though Harper develops the classic signs of smallpox infections, he survives his illness. He also wins the affection of Hensley and of animal handler Jim Stockman, who bring him grapes and marshmallows as treats.
Harper, however, must be euthanized according to experimental protocol. Stockman arranges not to be on hand for the procedure, which is carried out quickly, yet somberly, by Martinez and Hensley. In a conversation with Preston, Jahrling would later acknowledge that performing lethal experiments on animals is an emotionally difficult process, but that such research is necessary to meet FDA standards and to develop drugs that could save human lives. But, Jahrling and his colleagues would soon encounter a very different source of concern. On September 11, 2001, the CDC was alerted to the terrorist attacks that had taken place elsewhere in the United States. Mark Martinez, a lieutenant colonel, led the evacuation of this sensitive building.
Chapter 5-6 Analysis
At first, the personal and biographical discussion that dominates much of “A Woman with a Peaceful Life” may seem like a radical departure from the structure Preston’s text has assumed. Having spent the previous three chapters dealing with the Meschede outbreak, the eradication, and the Russian bioweapons program, Preston moves away from such large concerns in geopolitics and public health to consider the life of Lisa Hensley. Hensley does work alongside Tom Geisbert and Peter Jahrling, though proximity to these men is not the best justification for her prominent role in the narrative. Instead, with his depiction of Hensley, Preston achieves something similar to what he achieved with his portrayals of Robert Stevens and Peter Los. He, as an author, confronts vast issues in modern disease and biowarfare from an intimate perspective, and adds to the array of viewpoints by dwelling, this time, on the duties and desires of a researcher.
Hensley’s perspective also helps Preston to deliver the details of the experiment involving smallpox-infected monkeys without bogging down the reader with data and technicalities. Interspersed with explanations of how the experiment worked are precise observations of the scene that give a step-by-step, approachable quality to this content. For instance, Preston describes Hensley’s experimental preparations at the CDC in the following manner: “An array of freezers stood along one wall, one of which was the smallpox freezer. Hensley started moving through the room. You didn’t exactly walk in Level 4, you shuffled” (167). Eventually, Preston will ease into the exact procedures that Hensley and her colleagues follow, but for now, the reader is given a view of the CDC through the eyes of Hensley herself.
In “The Demon’s Eyes,” Hensley is not quite as clearly Preston’s focus. The intimate and more easygoing notes that her education and her personal life impart to The Demon in the Freezer give way to an on-edge tone that is suited to more dire topics, such as the progress of smallpox through Harper’s body. This section engages the reader in a different manner: here, Preston’s prose raises the loaded ethical question of whether animals should suffer and die for the sake of scientific research. Jahrling, of course, regrets the loss of the animals’ lives but accepts the animals’ suffering as a necessity. However, the reader may not share such views, and may view the trials of animals, such as Harper, as closer to inexcusable forms of pain: “Harper was not dying. He was experiencing a form of agony that was the heritage of humanity, not of monkeys” (189). Harper has been infected with a human disease and can, arguably, seem human in his quirks and his stoicism. The question is not whether Harper’s death may lead to scientific progress—which indeed it might—but whether such progress is justified by the loss of a life that the USAMRIID researchers themselves treasure.
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