I asked him: "Do you agree with Poznyshiev[1] when he says that doctors
have destroyed and are destroying thousands and hundreds of thousands
of people?"
"Are you very interested to know?"
"Very."
"Then I shan't tell you."
And he smiled, playing with his thumbs.
I remember in one of his stories he makes a comparison between a quack
village vet. and a doctor of medicine:--
"The words 'giltchak,' 'potchetchny,' bloodletting,'[2] are they not
precisely the same as nerves, rheumatism, organisms, etc.?"
And this was written after Jenner, Behring, Pasteur. It is perversity!
[Footnote 1: In _Kreutzer Sonata._]
[Footnote 2: Words used by quack vets, for the diseases of horses.]