That's not how it sounds to me at all. It sounds to me like no matter what he did, he couldn't escape open hostility to his idea -- based on research where he w

That's not how it sounds to me at all. It sounds to me like no matter what he did, he couldn't escape open hostility to his idea -- based on research where he was a physician in charge of two clinics with different mortality rates -- and was hounded and then punished for failing to cave to social pressure to recant his "nutty" idea. The world was smaller then. Getting away from toxic social patterns was likely even harder than it is now.