Israel Shkliar was the medic of Kleck. He was already old when I was a child. He probably did not have a high academic training but he could tell what the sickness was. People relied on him more than on great professors. He was not for writing prescriptions – maybe for lack of knowledge of Latin terminology. He used to say in Russian: castor oil and quinine are the best medications. He himself prepared his own “powders”. When visiting the sick person, he immediately stuck the thermometer under their armpit, looked into their eyes, examined the tongue, stuck a spoon in the mouth and thus completed his diagnosis. He then prescribed a bitter powder, a spoon of castor oil, or an enema. And the sick sure enough were cured.

His practice was wide. He offered his services not only to Jews but also to the non-Jewish villagers, who came to panye shklar with a wagon bringing a badly wounded or in confinement and at the same time ask for an advice about a sick cow.

In very serious cases they turned to Doctor Mushkat, a real Pole, communicating with him in Polish mixed with Russian, with Yiddish words inserted. He was a bright expert. He liked to drink and play cards – and only with Jews. I remember that several times I had to look for him in Katzav’s bookstore, where he was sitting with Katzav and with the dentist, Dlugash, deep into a card game. He came with me muttering under his mustache:

However he was a good-hearted by nature, practiced general medicine but also operated in emergency. He was serious and thorough knew pathology and was dedicated to the sick patient.

Surely, people did not run to the doctor with every trifle. For special children’s sicknesses of especially nerves they used “removal of devil’s eye” … That was the specialty of Alter Keiderke (Toterke) who, with a boiling kettle devised the figure of a dog or a horse. and since the “reason” was known – the healing with cupping-glasses was easy… Anyway, this proved not worse than today’s psychoanalytical séances…