"What?" Martin heard Kraft exclaim. He was saying some word Martin had never heard before, but that wasn't surprising. It was only natural for a Medical School professor to blurt out things no one else knew.
More than the unfamiliar word, Martin cared about what it meant. What had Kraft discovered that could explain this bizarre situation?
"I mean, it's an uncommon infectious disease." Kraft glanced around, but couldn't find a yellow biohazard bin, so he tossed the tongue depressor into the coffin.
Literally speaking, yes. Fungal infections were uncommon. Even if plenty of people had the habit of sniffing the tubular, flexible fabric they took off their feet after wearing it inside their shoes, getting fungal pneumonia from it would still make for an exceedingly rare news story, wouldn't it? Most of the time, fungi had little to do with people, so fungal infections weren't as common as those caused by other pathogens.
Most of the time, when fungi were mentioned, it was in connection with some other underlying disease, as a sign of a compromised immune system. Oral Candida in people with AIDS, for example, or Aspergillus as a complication of tuberculosis, taking advantage when things went badly.
That made the situation even harder to make sense of. It would have been understandable if the Duke had an Aspergillus infection, but could all these Heretics really be infected with HIV?
[Not necessarily. Hard to say.]
Kraft quickly reeled his thoughts back in. Could things really be that absurd? But Candida infections shouldn't look like this, either. Compared with the normal condition, it was like a primeval forest beside an artificial lawn.
And even if this inexplicable hunch was right, fungi were a vast category. The difference between fungi that infected humans and mushrooms might be greater than the