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[Conrad]

I have the habit of checking the hospital every so often, just to see what's going on. It started with one kid, then a couple cats, then one of my militia captains, and it's been spreading. The general symptoms start with "Advanced Rot" on both eyes, then the entire body swells up. When one of the cats bled to death, I checked over the body and found forgotten beast extract, forgotten beast blood, and dwarf pus. The pus seems to be the only common factor between the blind, the most recent only has it on their right foot.

My doctors keep removing the rotting eyes, so I haven't had any dwarf deaths yet, but I'm getting concerned about the growing blindness amongst the dwarves. What do I do? We've got plenty of soap. Should I flood the entire fortress to ensure it cleans (because that will never go wrong).

How do you folks deal with disease?

[Sphalerite]

The cause is the forgotten beast extract and/or forgotten beast blood.  This gets on one dwarf, who tracks it on the floor, where it can then contaminate other dwarves.  You can partially deal with the problem with a clever dwarf-washing pool, to get the stuff off dwarves and animals, but this has to be set up in the right way to prevent the creation of a pool that just recontaminates everyone.

Soap doesn't seem to help.  There's not much you can do for the affected dwarves, so you should concentrate on preventing new cases.  Clean up any forgotten beast blood or extract on the floor wherever possible.  Kill, chain, or cage all your animals, wandering animals spread contaminates everywhere.

[Fishbulb]

In my limited experience, forgotten beast plagues are the new HFS. I've lost more forts to disease than I ever did to demons.

[Akura]

Best thing to do about the blindness pandemic, train a lot of siege operators. Because they can't see enemies, they won't run in panic.

[Max White]

Best thing to do about the blindness pandemic, train a lot of siege operators. Because they can't see enemies, they won't run in panic.

Good idea is good.
They might make good wood cutters too, as they won't get distracted by carp.

[Radivnal]

Normal Citizen's Mentality: Aww! The man lost his eyes! That poor soul, it would suck to lose my eyes. I wouldn't even be able to get around my house.

DF player's mentality: Hmm. That man lost his eyes! Quick! Put him at the controls of the nastiest, biggest, most lethal weapon we have in the whole Armok-forsaken fortress!

[expwnent]

Normal Citizen's Mentality: Aww! The man lost his eyes! That poor soul, it would suck to lose my eyes. I wouldn't even be able to get around my house.

DF player's mentality: Hmm. That man lost his eyes! Quick! Put him at the controls of the nastiest, biggest, most lethal weapon we have in the whole Armok-forsaken fortress!

This.

[Demicus]

Normal Citizen's Mentality: Aww! The man lost his eyes! That poor soul, it would suck to lose my eyes. I wouldn't even be able to get around my house.

DF player's mentality: Hmm. That man lost his eyes! Quick! Put him at the controls of the nastiest, biggest, most lethal weapon we have in the whole Armok-forsaken fortress!

Why I love the community

[Dariush]

Make a Planepacked-y artifact, place it in middle of a gigantic room, then fill it with precious metals in every form. Let the world be known that the awesomeness of this project forced the poor people to tear out their own eyes because they'll never see anything comparable ever again! 

Also, on the pro side, they shouldn't be disgusted by sight of the rotting bodies of their friends and relatives, and the general blood-and-vomit-fullness of fortress. On the cons side, they won't be able to see your masterful engravings On the pro side, you won't need to engrave them. On the cons side, dying dwarves won't be able to warn the rest of the fortress about ambushes On the pro side, they will be blissfully unaware about that groundhog.

In general, a blind fortress is a new and hilarious thing. It should be exploited.

[Musashi]

I temporarily had a blind jeweler and surgeon once. While it had practically no effect whatsoever on their professional life, imagining the result was hilarious.

[Dariush]

I temporarily had a blind jeweler and surgeon once. While it had practically no effect whatsoever on their professional life, imagining the result was hilarious.

Temporarily? They got better?

[Musashi]

I temporarily had a blind jeweler and surgeon once. While it had practically no effect whatsoever on their professional life, imagining the result was hilarious.

Temporarily? They got better?

Well, yeah, seeing how they're not blind anymore. The disease didn't outright rot their eyes and they required no medical attention, so...
And they were not alone, they are still occasionally joined by the usual kind of moron who waits at the worst possible time at the ER for something extremely minor (well, blindness IS minor here) and goes back to work once the diagnosis is made. It's a strange syndrome that literally did nothing more than render eyes useless for several months. I tried exploiting it, but we all know how random diseases can be.

[SlimyMarmot]

Please tell me that the doctors removing everyone's eyes have no eyes either.

[tomas1297]

 This sounds like an extremely badass infection. Sounds like something you'd make a movie about. Psychological horror?

[Lancensis]

You think it's bad now, wait untill the infection clears up and the old dwarves are still forcibly removing immigrants' eyes, à la The Dweller in The Gulf, or that old HG Wells Story with the tribe of blind people.