"To our knowledge, this is the first time the mobile phone microscope had been used in the field to diagnose intestinal parasitic infections, " said Isaac Bogoch, an internal medicine specialist at Toronto General Hospital.

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Researcher Dr Isaac Bogoch, who specialises in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Toronto General Hospital, told the BBC he had read about smartphone microscopes being trialled in a laboratory and decided to "recreate it in a real world setting".

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One example of this is a dispute between researchers at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and a Canadian drug company called Apotek.

ECONOMIST: Trial and error

Research published a few years ago by Donald Redelmeier and Sheldon Singh, of Sunnybrook and Women's Hospital in Toronto, showed that Oscar-winning actors and actresses live 3.6 years longer than those who are nominated, but do not win.

ECONOMIST: Is two years extra life

He was inspired in part by a visit years ago to Toronto's Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, which built his prosthetic.

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The Toronto centre sends clients for swift heart-bypass surgery to a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.

ECONOMIST: Canada