were suffering from coeliac disease appeared to have recovered more quickly during the wartime shortage of bread and cereals. Dicke wrote his findings in a series of influential academic papers, and the gluten-free diet was born. Elsewhere in the country, a doctor called Willem Kolff tried to get around shortages of medical equipment and save the lives of his patients by experimenting with two new tools he had invented: the blood bank and the blood-filtering dialysis machine. The first fifteen patients to use the equipment died, perhaps because it was made from sausage skins and old washing
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