Delirium Tremens

In a tiny shanty on the outskirts of Sabattus, a lifelong drinker recently willed himself to give up booze. Within hours of abstinence, he began suffering acute symptoms of withdrawal. There was trembling and great excitement; anxiety, sweating and precordial pain. After nearly a day had passed, these symptoms were accompanied by delirium and the fellow called friends raving from his hallucinations. He fancied that caterpillars were crawling over his body, growing numbers of hairy creatures consuming his flesh. In his last phone call, the man was heard screaming that he could no longer move, that the sheer number of caterpillars on him weighted him down.

Familiar with the horrors of D.T.s and accompanying hallucinations, the friend on the phone called for an ambulance and paramedics were dispatched to care for the alcoholic. He was found shortly after, barely alive in the heat drenched shack on the outskirts of town. D.T's or not, the man was found enwrapped in a cocoon.