A woman named Ethel Moore* arose one morning in the summer of 1999 and traveled 76 miles from her home in upstate New York to see a doctor in Manhattan. Moore was 74 years old, a stylish, humble woman who looked like someone’s mom. Once in the doctor’s office, she disrobed to reveal a secret that had both plagued and embarrassed her for two years and which she had kept hidden from friends and neighbors. A hairy tan-and-brown rash covered her body from the neck down. She had visited numerous doctors to rid herself of the affliction, but to no avail. The pathology lab of a prestigious Manhattan institution had examined biopsies of her lesions and pronounced them cancerous; her regular doctor had dutifully prescribed chemotherapy. To Moore, that felt like a death sentence. She wanted a second opinion.
Her new doctor, Thomas Bolte, thought that she was more than ...
