The first two admitted to hospital were comatose, near death, would have died if another dozen had not followed hard on their heels, still conscious and able to give an account of themselves.

Women with toxic shock syndrome presented like those men; a few collapsed and died before they could receive help. Here the ecosystem that had been disrupted by human action was small and localized, but its size is less relevant than the lesson it teaches us about the hazardous consequences of a seemingly neat solution to a social problem of our gender-liberated age.