Pope Francis has a bilateral pneumonia
Pope Francis, who remains hospitalized, has a bilateral pneumonia, said the Vatican Tuesday.The term simply means pneumonia in both lungs, said dr. James Musser, director of the center for infectious Diseases at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. He added that, without examining a patient, he could not say anything specific about his condition.In general, pneumonia is an infection of the small airways of the lungs. While the body mounts an inflammatory response, small pockets in the lungs are filled with immune cells; Symptoms can include fever, cough and chills. To diagnose the disease, a doctor generally asks the patient to say a long "and", as if the person sang. Through a stethoscope, the "and" of a patient with pneumonia sounds like an "a", said dr. Paul Pottinger, professor of...