Surgeons developed new techniques during the epidemic that are still in use to drain empyemas, pockets of pus and infection that formed in the lung and poisoned the body. And doctors had drugs that alleviated some symptoms or stimulated the heart; major hospitals had X-rays that could aid in diagnosis and triage; and some hospitals had begun administering oxygen to help victims breathe—a practice neither widespread nor administered nearly as effectively as it would be, but worth something. Yet for a doctor to use these resources, any of them, that doctor had to have them—and also had to have
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