There is a context missing. The Dijkstra quote is really old (Wikipedia dates it to 1975) and do not talk about "modern Basic" we know, with a good support for

There is a context missing. The Dijkstra quote is really old (Wikipedia dates it to 1975) and do not talk about "modern Basic" we know, with a good support for structured programming -- it's about a language where GOTO's were used instead of proper loops. It's certainly still an exageration to speak about "brain corruption", but I think I know why he put such emphasis on the statement.