Gram staining by physicians: an invaluable practice still seen in East Asia.

see how the fate of the goddess had evolved following the eradication of her raison d’etre. Attendants at the shrine informed me that she continues to function, but as the goddess of chickenpox. In Bengali, the word for smallpox is also used for the spring season—boshonto, pronounced “bawshontaw”—an association that arises from the seasonality of smallpox epidemics in Bengal prior to the eradication of smallpox. The word for chickenpox is jol boshonto (“water boshonto”), referring to the liquid-containing vesicles found in chickenpox, which shares a spring seasonality with smallpox. Worshippers at Kali puja, or Hindu religious services that I attended in a Hindu community in Guyana sought cure for many varieties of serious or chronic diseases through Kali’s intervention. A theory exists that Sitala may have evolved as an emanation of Kali. A third manifestation of the fearsome aspect of the goddess in Hinduism is the goddess Chamunda, depicted as a skeletal hag dancing upon the back of a male figure who crouches below her, perhaps a victim. She is the goddess of epidemics of pestilent diseases, famines, and other disasters. The remaining, more numerous and feminine female deities of Hinduism are chiefly nonhorrific and of beautiful and far more benign demeanor.