The next upswing puts the number of reported cases in the thousands, and three months after that, it reaches real pandemic proportions and decimates the entire human population of Darkover."
"The Planet Savers"
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Again, the process of elimination does not necessarily mean that the handicapped variants come at once to a violent end, as when rat devours rat, or the cold decimates a flock of birds in a single night; it often simply means that the less fit die before the average time, and are less successful than their neighbours as regards pairing and having offspring.
"Herbert Spencer"
J. Arthur Thomson