Svarupa Damodara: I have many medical friends. They frankly admit that oftentimes they kill the patients in the name of treating. It turns out that it was their own medicine that they gave.

Prabhupada: Yes. Recently that Dalmia secretary… What is his name?

Tamala Krsna: Hitsaran Sharma.

Prabhupada: In pathology his prescription was replaced by another

Tamala Krsna: I don’t follow. Recently whose?

Upendra: His prescription was replaced by another.

Prabhupada: He had some trouble.

Tamala Krsna: Hitsaran.

Prabhupada: So, what is called? Pathology?

Tamala Krsna: Pathology? No.

Prabhupada: No, laboratory testing?

Tamala Krsna: What’s laboratory test called?

Svarupa Damodara: Pathology?

Bhavananda: Yes.

Prabhupada: So his case was transferred to another.

Tamala Krsna: [laughs] Oh, boy.

Svarupa Damodara: One after another.

Bhavananda: Mixed up.

Tamala Krsna: No, mixed up. His diagnosis was given to someone else. They made a mistake, and then they treated the other person.

Svarupa Damodara: Oh!

Prabhupada: And he was being treated as tuberculosis.

Svarupa Damodara: Oh, boy.

Adi-kesava: Sometimes they make the operations, and they leave the knife in, and they sew the knife up inside after they make an operation. Or the scissors. They take some clamps and they sew them inside the wound. And then the man says, “Oh, I have a pain in my side.” And they say, “Oh, new disease,” and they make another operation and take out the clamps or the knife.

Svarupa Damodara: Sometimes they only depend on machines, these medical doctors. That’s why he’s mentioning about x-ray. Through these machines you cannot tell the correct diagnosis.

Prabhupada: I have got many experiences in my family life. One servant, Kashiram.

Svarupa Damodara: Kashiram.

Prabhupada: Yes, his name was Kashiram. So he was howling, howling. So we took him to the hospital, and so many student doctors surrounded. They diagnosed something, strangulation or something like that.

Tamala Krsna: Strangulation.

Prabhupada: Yes. Then they were prepared to surgical operation. Then another experienced doctor came. He said, “Let us wait today.” So he was kept in the hospital, and we came back. That Kashiram… Another friend, servant of the neighborhood, and so he said, “Babaji, he has drunk little.”

Tamala Krsna: He got a little drunk.

Prabhupada: So I said, “Don’t … There are so many doctors…” And next morning he came back and said, “The doctor said, ‘You are all right. You can
go.’ “

Tamala Krsna: He was just drunk from liquor. [laughter]

Svarupa Damodara: I had a similar story. It is my own personal experience. In 1974 I came here in India. I got malaria in the United States in summer 1975. Then temperature was very high. I went to the Baptist Hospital in Atlanta. They thought it was a virus, viral infection. They couldn’t diagnose. Then they gave some medicine, and then I went. But it started again the following day, then I went to another doctor. He could not diagnose. So they gave me glucose injection, a big bottle, thinking that was a strange viral infection. So about six, seven doctors, they couldn’t diagnose for three-four days. Then one day there was a doctor who came from Vietnam, he had some experience in tropical disease. So he thought it might be malarial fever. Then, after that, I was surrounded by many doctors thinking that it was a strange disease before, but they diagnosed… But it was not right. They did all the wrong medicine, thinking it was a viral infection.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Svarupa Damodara: This is in America, just two years ago.

Tamala Krsna: I told you the story of my father recently, Srila Prabhupada, how he had the arthritis in the hip, so they gave him a new hip. Then it moved to the other hip, and they replaced the other hip. So after eight weeks he was in the bed in the hospital, and then they said, “Now you can try to walk.” So they gave him crutches, and they stood him up, and after eight weeks of all these operations, as soon as he stood up he had a heart attack and died right on the spot. They were very sure. “Now you’re all right,” they told him.

Pancadravida: My great-uncle, he had tonsillitis, so he went to a friend who was a doctor, and the friend said, “That’s all right. We’ll operate, and I will not charge you anything.” So he went into the hospital, and in the operation the doctor dropped a scalpel, and after that… He was very big, and he became very small, never could eat again.

Room Conversation — October 22, 1977, Vrndavana