In March 2009, after a long night on duty at the hospital, Emmeline Lagrange took a deep breath and prepared to place a devastating phone call. Lagrange, a neurologist, had diagnosed a 42-year-old woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The woman lived in a small village in the French Alps, an hour and a half drive away from Lagrange's office in Grenoble Alpes University Hospital. Because ALS is rare, Lagrange expected that the patient's general practitioner, Valerie Foucault, had never seen a case before. Snow fell outside Lagrange's window as she got ready to describe how ALS inevitably paralyzes and kills its victims. But to her surprise, as soon as she shared the diagnosis, Foucault responded, 'I know this disease very well, because she is the fourth in my village.' ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, occurs in roughly two to three people out of every 100,000 in Europe. (The rate is slightly higher in the United States.) But every so often, hot spots emerge....
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