Chapter XXIX

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.]