ABSTRACT
In 1944, an American newspaper published an article about the city of Mattoon, Illinois:
Groggy as Londoners under protracted aerial blitzing, this town’s bewildered citizens reeled today under the repeated attacks of a mad anaesthetist who has sprayed a deadly nerve gas into 13 homes and has knocked out 27 victims …. Seventy others dashing to the area in response to the alarm, fell under the influence of the gas last night …. All scepticism vanished and Mattoon grimly conceded it must fight haphazardly against a demented phantom adversary who has been seen only fleetingly and so far has evaded traps laid by city and state police and posses of townsmen.1
