A mistake that might have been my last

In the years 1943, 1944, and 1945 there occurred late spring sub-epidemics of bubonic plague in the city of Chuanchow, in Fujian province in south China. Hospital admissions were between 88 and 69 each year.

I was called to see a patient in the emergency room of the hospital. She was a young woman, semi-comatose with a high …