: 1917 year. A young rural doctor begins the fight against syphilis, which infects entire families in villages. Patients do not finish the treatment, and the doctor seeks to open a special department in the hospital.

The narration is on behalf of a young doctor, whose name is not mentioned in the story. The action takes place in 1917.

A young doctor who worked at the zemstvo station who graduated from the university only six months ago was admitted with a characteristic rash similar to a starry sky. Despite inexperience, the doctor immediately recognized the disease - it was syphilis, the scourge of Russian villages.

The doctor for a long time explained to the forty-year-old uncle that he had a “bad disease”, and he needed to be treated for two years and treat his wife. To the doctor’s surprise, the man was not at all afraid. He did not believe the doctor and demanded a rinse for a stuffy throat, which was one of the secondary signs of syphilis.

The doctor failed to convince the patient. Leaving the office a few minutes after the uncle left, the doctor heard him whispering complaining about the carelessness of the doctor, who, instead of treating the throat, says nonsense and gives ointment for the legs.

For a whole month the doctor was waiting for an uncle or his wife to receive it, then the stubborn patient was forgotten.

If he is alive, from time to time he and his wife go to the local hospital. Complain of leg ulcers. ‹...› And the young doctor ‹...› writes in the book: “Luis 3” ...

Soon, a frightened young woman came to the doctor, whose husband was sick with syphilis and, presumably, infected her. She was one of the few who decided to be treated to the end. Every Saturday for four months a woman came to Muryevo for an examination. Finally, to the amazement of the doctor, it turned out that the woman was not infected by some miracle.

Soon she returned, brought the doctor butter and eggs, which he did not take. Then, during the hungry revolutionary years, the doctor often remembered this oil ...

For four months, while examining a woman, the doctor leafed through old outpatient books and found new records about syphilis. Basically it was a secondary and tertiary luez, almost no one handled the primary. This meant that the peasants had no idea about syphilis, and primary ulcers did not scare anyone.

Not only adults, but also small children, suffered from a “bad disease”, because in families most often they ate from the same bowl, and spoons and towels were shared. Entire families were infected.

Teach me off the beaten path! Teach me the silence of a country house! Yes, the old dispensary will tell a lot of interesting things to the young doctor.

Syphilis has become the main enemy of the young doctor. He saw him everywhere, in all manifestations and stages, acquired and inherited. Some patients were treated, but most left after the first appointment and never returned.The peasants were not afraid of this disease and did not consider it necessary to spend time on treatment.

The doctor matured, became focused, gloomy, dreamed of returning from his exile to the city and there to continue the fight against syphilis. Once, a young and beautiful woman with three young children came to see him. All four were covered with star rash and ulcers.

The doctor tried to scare the woman, and she stayed to be treated. After that, the doctor managed to open a syphilitics department in the Muryevskaya hospital - poor, with torn underwear and two syringes, but operating. A mother with three children became the first patient in the new department, and the doctor was happy to watch the star rash melt on children's bodies.