Bipinchandra D. Darmar, professor of medicine at Surat's medical college, was a worried man when he sat down to breakfast one morning last month with his wife Indira, a pediatrician. The previous evening, two patients had died at the 800-bed New Civil Hospital where the couple work, and Parmar did not understand why. Two young men from the city slums had developed bilateral lung infections and died anguished deaths -- fevered, coughing blood, rolling and clawing at oxygen masks as acute apnea robbed them of breath. Standard cardiorespiratory treatment had proved futile. As he was discussing the cases, Parmar's attention was...
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