Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

by David Quammen

My assignment was minor: When the door fell, I should get there immediately and lock it down with my foot, so the captured macaques couldn’t widget their way out. Gregory Engel would then do the hard part, tranquilizing them one by one with a hypodermic full of Telazol, a fast-acting veterinary anesthetic. How do you inject a hysterical monkey? In this case, by jabbing into its thigh through the mesh of the trap. Professor Mohammed Mustafa Feeroz, Engel and Jones-Engel’s principal Bangladeshi collaborator, would stand as defense. Four of Feeroz’s students would help. Defense was important because the uncaptured monkeys might charge, frantic to free their comrades. They could be a formidable platoon. Lisa Jones-Engel, chief genius of the whole project but prohibited from entering this shrine because of her gender, would be waiting in a courtyard nearby, along with several female assistants, to begin drawing blood. One, two, three: trap, tranquilize, draw. What could be simpler? Lots of things, let me tell you, could be simpler. The trap was baited with puffed rice and bananas. Within moments of seeing the bait placed, a few monkeys came to inspect. They climbed all over the trap, inside and out. Most of the others held back. Word seemed to pass among them, excitement rose, more animals arrived across the rooftops; there must have been a hundred, all nervously curious about our presence and tantalized by the bait. We loitered discreetly, on the steps, on the slope, looking c...