all purpose treatment

Source: Inam Ahmed

The lady got down to cooking. Cooking in the hills is a simple affair. You just boil and add some Nappi and ginger. No oil or spice. But a lot of red hot chilli.
Breakfast was simple. Rice and boiled leaves.
As the sun rose higher, neighbours started streaming in. They somehow had come to know that there was a doctor with us – Dr Ronald Halder. So they wanted to grab this opportunity to get free treatment.
A woman had been suffering from chronic dysentery. She needed some anti-biotic. Someone was having fever. Another had toothache. So we handed out paracetamol tablets and oral saline. We carried some basic anti-biotics for all purpose treatment. We gave those too. A very old woman had asthma. But we could not help her.
A little child came with a badly swollen carbuncle on his throat. It must be paining a lot, but he was not crying. There was little we could do. So the doc advised the parent to apply coal poultice.
I wondered how these people survived without any healthcare here. The nearest treatment should be two days away.
By the time we had finished with our clinic, a man walked in with a strange looking tortoise about seven inches. None of us had seen its kind before. It obviously looked like a land tortoise unknown to us. This precious thing was going to be our lunch.