> Many victims rapidly developed an especially viscous pneumonia and then, as one physician put it, “died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth.” Medical science of the day was helpless before the onslaught. There was nothing Nelle’s doctor could do for her. Jack, who ordinarily attended mass on an intermittent basis, began lighting candles daily at the altar. The boys hovered anxiously, waiting for the doctor to pronounce the end. Instead, in desperation, he advised the family to feed her as much moldy cheese as she could stomach. There is no medical reason that a virus would respond to what the doctor may have supposed was a crude form of antibiotic. But Nelle recovered nonetheless, her indomitable will refusing to submit to a mere pathogen. For the rest of his life, my father would credit the cheese.
> Many victims rapidly developed an especially viscous pneumonia and then, as one physician put it, “died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth.” Medical science of the day was helpless before the onslaught. There was nothing Nelle’s doctor could do for her. Jack, who ordinarily attended mass on an intermittent basis, began lighting candles daily at the altar. The boys hovered anxiously, waiting for the doctor to pronounce the end. Instead, in desperation, he advised the family to feed her as much moldy cheese as she could stomach. There is no medical reason that a virus would respond to what the doctor may have supposed was a crude form of antibiotic. But Nelle recovered nonetheless, her indomitable will refusing to submit to a mere pathogen. For the rest of his life, my father would credit the cheese.