The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-10
CURIOUS CHOLERA CURES.
A Traveller Relates His Experience with
the Disease in Russia.

A Traveller Relates His Experience with
the Disease in Russia.
st. Louis Post Dispatch.
Talking about cholera, said the gentleman,
the funniest experience l was ever through
was in Russia, where the people are so blind
ly superstitious and overwhelmingly ignOr-
ant that they have recourse to the most alb
surd methods of ~allaying or preventing the
disease. In many of the villages there are
witches who are practitioners OF medicine,
and, indeed, have generally more patients
than the doctors. The peasantry regard dis
eases as evil spirits, and the most eihcaciOus
cures in their eyes are spells and i~ncanta-
lions. The witches are old women with
some knowledge OF medicine, and when 4
patient calls one OF them in she takes great
care, in addition to sprinkling the patient
with magic essences and uttering mysterious
formula, to administer a dose of powerful
medicine, as bitter and nasty as it is possible
Tor her to make it with her limited pharma-
ceutical knowledge. The patient recovers,
and the witch, who attributes the cure - her
supernatural endowments, get IA fee CORE
spending in size with the malignity OF the
aIlment.
But when an epidemic is threatening,
and after it has broken out, then the witch
is in her glory. The peasant Immediately
loses all faith in science, and if the local
doctor escapes blame for having caused the
visitation he may account himself exceed
liiE1J lONlulldtt. IIIS MGdhllGoo VI bliC
the peasantry is commemorate in a sub
stantlal way in st. Petersburg where one OF
the bas reliefs on the monument of the
Emperor Nicholas represents the sovereign
dispensing a crowd of peasants who had at
tackled a cholera hospital and were starving
the doctors, who would have been killed
had not the Emperor come to their rescue"
When cholera or the cattle plague visits
a village Mr.. Bowren continued, the
women, under the direction of the local
witch, form a procession at night, very
lightly clad in their night-dresseS only. The
men remain carefully indoors, and woe to
any peeping Tom in their number-he will
be set upon and most numerically beaten.
Bearing with them a picture OF st. Was,
Upon whom the mantle of the old Pagan
divinity, Vaios, protector of cattle, seems to
have fallen, and dragging a pillow with them
they make the circuit of the village three
times, and this line drawn by the pillow is
considered a barrier to the progress of dis
ease, or demon rather, which he cannot
cross. If it be the cattle death they are
seeking protection from they chant a weird
incarnation i'll which Low Death is I'M
plored to depart from the village without
meddling with their cows-nut-brown, white
uddered, star-browed, crumple-horhed. or
otherwise.
There are, however, worse occurrences
than these in some governments where
they hold that if the first cholera or small
pOX !dJlenL IS DUrleu alive the epluenllC Will
be stayed. Then IN others. an old woman
suspected of magic is seized and buried alive
or fang into the river with a cock, a dog and
a black cat. remember in the summer of
1879, they killed an old woman, supposed to
be a witch, in one of the villages, the object
being thereby to prevent a visit of the
Astrakhan plague. Occasionally there are
voluntary sacrifices of life to appease the
dreaded demon. Men and women have been
known to draw lots, and the unfortunate
person to whom the lot fell was invariably
buried alive with the inevitable cock and
black cat"
Have they no vaccination among them?"
the reporter asked.
The Russian peasants view Of v~accina-
ton" said the traveller, lis not calculated to
make him take to it kindly or to prevent the
spread of small pox. They regard v~accina-
tiCn as the seal of anti-Christ set upon a
child, and believe that whoever dies of
smallpox will go Immediately to heaven
and walk the sapphire streets in robes of
gold. Death by the disease is the open sesa-
me to eternal happiness, and judging by the
large number OF peasants to be met in the
streets of st. Petersburg with faces deeply
pitted by the smallpox, a greater number of
them have been near heaven than ever
will get anywhere close to it again"