It an epidemic!

"Now go and send her another telegram. Keep on sending telegrams. Leave nothing to chance. Send a dozen and pitch it strong. Say that Blandings Castle is ravaged with disease. Not merely scarlet fever. Scarlet fever and mumps. not to mention housemaid's knee, diabetes, measles, shingles, and the botts. We're on to a  big thing, my Susan. Let us push it along."

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)