Some time afterward I saw one of her victims.

Whether she had succeeded in destroying the poison I know not, but she had at least succeeded in destroying most completely the patient's teeth.

How women of this kind obtain mercury, and how they have discovered its medicinal properties, I cannot explain.

Neither can I explain how they have come to know the peculiar properties of ergot of rye, which they frequently employ for illicit purposes familiar to all students of medical jurisprudence.
The znakharka and the feldsher represent two very different periods in the history of medical science--the magical and the scientific.
The Russian peasantry have still many conceptions which belong to the former.

The great majority of them are already quite willing, under ordinary circumstances, to use the scientific means of healing; but as soon as a violent epidemic breaks out, and the scientific means prove unequal to the occasion, the old faith revives, and recourse is had to magical rites and incantations.