I have the medical history of one Urist C. Catlady.
Prior to this, I had never used atom smashing, as I considered it an exploit, and not really legitimate gameplay. Urist however...
She was the prickly thorn in my side. The fortress had suffered a few bad events, but was weathering out the storm at "Content" and "Fine". Urist was everyone's friend. Apparently, a complete, and total busybody despite being on near 24/7 duty doing pretty much any job I could chuck at her. She was a migrant, and despite my strict "Only male cats allowed" rules, she dared to sneak a female cat into the fortress with her when she arrived. Reading the fine print was it seemed, not something she cared for when filling out the immigration forms. Being a pet, I couldn't immediately slaughter the vile creature (and at the time, this was when all the bad events were occurring) so it went UNDETECTED and UNTREATED. Naturally, it made sweet spore love with who knows how many of the male stockpile guardians I had permitted to remain, and by the time I managed to get things back to "Content" and "Fine", Urist's cat had exploded, Not once, but close to 5 times, with its horrible progeny also exploding a few times in the meanwhile.
Being the only dwarf in the fortress susceptible to kitty cat mind control, Urist quickly became their slave in their diabolical plot to overthrow the fortress, and had no less than SIXTY cats attached to her poor addled brains by the time I could deal with the issue. Again, the fortress was teetering on the brink of a tantrum spiral, Urist McCatlady was a busybody from hell, who was friends with everyone, and was the mindthrall of SIXTY cats, of mixed genders. I needed a solution, and I needed it fast. She plugged up the hallways with her teeming morass of feline flesh everywhere she went. It replicated like a cancer every few months. AND, it was a ticking timebomb before some of her "babies" started dying from any number of other causes, initiating the tantrum spiral.
I refused to let this happen, so I intervened. I created a 3x3 bridge to nowhere, surrounded by a perimeter wall, and roofed over. It had a floodgate door, and inside I placed a pen/pasture zone.
Kitties went in, about 5 or six at a time, and blessed relief came out the other. Of the 60 mindflayers, Urist felt the deaths of only 5. I had her placed in a special ward, filled with beautiful dwarven architectural wonders, and the finest booze. It took 2 dwarven years to purge her of her affliction, but in the end, both she and the fortress were saved.
The dwarven atom-smasher truly is a modern miracle machine.