Do I have a Bee in my Bonnet?

It Rather amused me to hear this man, who I knew to be gentle and tender-hearted, actually insisting that about one-half of the population of the globe ought to be murdered; but I thought little of it at the time. I knew how fond some men are of propounding bold and startling theories, which they themselves would be the very last to dream of carrying into action. Here was a man, whose business in life had been to heal the sick, and so to prolong the existence of the weakest specimens of the human race. And now he was saying that the extermination of millions of healthy, vigorous men was the one thing that the world needed! It was another illustration of the inevitable bee which, sooner or later gets into the bonnet of every scientific man.

From The Purple Death, by W. L. Alden.