He shook his head a little. “This recent affliction does seem beyond understanding, stranger than anything any of us here have encountered.” But-“ Combeferre frowned thoughtfully at his pad thai. “I fear that there is mystery in a great part of medicine, and that even we who study it are not always the experts we claim to be. We have believed that illness was a sign from God, an indication of unbalanced humors, the result of microscopic creatures burrowing inside us. But even when we are wrong, we strive to understand better. We keep trying. And if all I have read on the advances in medicine is to be trusted, we usually get it right in the end.” His optimism had no false cheer in it. Combeferre believed in Progress above all. “We will come to understand this plague as we have so many others, I am sure."