excerpt from An Imperfect Offering

“A boy of about five walked towards me, his hand held open, asking for food. I felt nausea as he appraoched. “He is cursed,” Hurzi cautioned. “There are more like him coming from the villages.” At first I thought the boy had been shot in the face. He had a gaping hole eight inches in diameter just below his right cheekbone. The jawbone was exposed, and the flesh around the opening was rotting black. Through the hole I could see his tongue moving as he tried to talk to me. He was suffering from cancrum oris, a very rare effect of prolonged starvastion, where immunity is all but nil and the normal bacteria of the mouth proliferate and begin feeding on proximate flesh. I had only seen old pictures of it in tropical medicine textbooks. This was real, and for a moment I had to turn away. Disease follows hunger and will likely kill before the body expires from starvation.”

- James Orbinski, when he was serving as a medical coordinator in Baidoa, Somalia, with “Doctors without Borders”

Picture of a boy suffering from “cancrum oris”. Deliberately shrunk. Click to enlarge.

An Imperfect Offering is a good book. I definitely recommend it to any health professional or anyone interested in Humanitarian Work or International Health.