Eleven Blue Men Summary and Analysis

In the fall of 1944, elderly men in a poverty area of Manhattan were stricken with a mysterious illness. They turned blue, rigid and cyanotic, and were in shock. Physicians at first believed the culprit to be carbon monoxide poisoning and prescribed treatment which did, in fact, save ten of the eleven total who were hospitalized. Because the incident involved eleven people with the same illness, the public health department had a legal requirement to investigate. It was subsequently discovered that all eleven had eaten at the Eclipse Cafeteria the morning of the onset of the illness. Doctors Greenberg and Pellitteri of the health department, however, had some suspicions that carbon monoxide was a misdiagnosis and began to look further, when two things were learned: Neither employees or other customers had become ill, and all eleven men had...