A house call in Nepal's Himalayas

The young man came into the Himalayan Rescue Association aid post in Manang at midday. He asked me to go and see a man in a nearby village who had been sick since the day before and was unable to move. I stuffed my medical gear into a backpack and followed the man to the horse that he had brought along, and, after a two hour ride, we finally arrived at his village.

We walked through the narrow alleys to the patient's house, where a cow greeted us on the ground floor, and climbed the wooden staircase to the terrace to find a middle …