Medicine: A Case of Tarantism

They came up out of the Times Square subways like pilgrims bound for Mecca. Most of them were children. Some were draped to the bricks in green porkpie hats, sharp canary-yellow coats, shrunken-ankle pants, and knee-length watch chains which tinkled in the 4 a.m. gloom. Zootsuited or not, they lined up at Manhat tan's Paramount Theater box office and waited. They were jitterbugs, and they were there to dig Harry Haag James, one time circus contortionist, virtuoso trumpeter, and leader of the nation's swing band sensation.

By 10 o'clock, 4,000 of them had...

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