“Why mere dreams? Much has already been done—but medicine is unfortunately still in its infancy. The future will undoubtedly bring to light great discoveries—means and possibilities must only be provided for experiments. Such experiments, indeed, are already receiving attention everywhere. Only a few days ago, for instance, I read in the papers that an Italian professor, director of a gynæcological institution, had announced at a congress that, according to the results of his researches, all female criminals suffered from various severe forms of women’s diseases. He suggested that instead of imprisonment they should undergo cures in gynæcological hospitals. Can you imagine anything more wildly stupid than sentencing a woman to death, or shutting her up for life in a prison, only because she needs to undergo a surgical operation? Perhaps one can imagine just one thing that is still more uncivilized—the idea that she will burn for ever in hell, because at the birth of her children she was attended by a clumsy or ignorant midwife! “And how many such cases do we meet at every step! I remember one of my aunts once told me how she had, in her youth, suffered from over-sensitiveness. She always imagined that everyone was laughing at her, that no one loved her, that she had constant reason to feel offended and insulted. She suffered dreadfully and began to grow positively misanthropical, hating and mistrusting everybody. Happily, chance sent her a clever doctor, who took her in hand, and put her nerves in order. Simultaneously with this improvement, her hysterical sensitiveness disappeared, and now, as soon as she suspects that she is going to have an attack of ‘being offended,’ she sends to the chemist for some bromide, and all is well!” “You are joking, Sergei Grigorievitch!”