It was just after midnight one recent weekend in the emergency room of Showa University Hospital in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. Pediatrician Katsura Sugihara was treating his 12th patient of the night, when the phone rang.

It was from a nurse in the pediatric ward, saying she needed him right away to give medicine to patients.

He scurried out of ER and into an adjacent building housing the pediatric ward. Swiftly moving from one bed to another, Sugihara uncapped drips on the arms of the sleeping children and started injecting drugs.