Hirsch Bensef was right. At the time of which we speak, medicine could scarcely be classed among the sciences in Russia, and if we accept the statement of modern travellers, the situation is not much improved at the present day. The scientific doctor of Russia was the feldsher or army surgeon, whose sole schooling was obtained among the soldiery and whose knowledge did not extend beyond dressing wounds and giving an occasional dose of physic. Upon being called to the bedside of a patient, he adopted an air of profound learning, asked a number of unimportant questions, prescribed an herb or drug of doubtful efficacy, and charged an exorbitant fee. The patient usually refused to take the medicine and recovered. It sometimes happened that he took the prescribed dose and perhaps recovered, too. On a level with the feldsher and much preferred by the peasantry, stood the snakharka, a woman, half witch, half quack, who was regarded by the moujiks with the greatest veneration. By means of herbs and charms, she could accomplish any cure short of restoring life to a corpse. "The snakharka 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 majority of them are now quite willing, under ordinary circumstances, to use the scientific means of healing, but as soon as a violent epidemic breaks out and scientific means prove unequal to the occasion, the old faith revives and recourse is had to magical rites and incantations."[5]
Neither of these systems was regarded favorably by the Hebrews. The feldshers were, by right of their superior knowledge, an arrogant class; and it was suspected that on more than one occasion they had hastened the death of a Jew under treatment, instead of relieving him. The Israelites were equally suspicious of the snakharkas; not because they were intellectually above the superstitions of their times, but because the incantations and spells were invariably pronounced in the name of the Virgin Mary, and no Jew could be reasonably expected to recover under such treatment.
What was to be done for poor Mendel? Hirsch, assisted by suggestions from his wife, cogitated long and earnestly. Suddenly Miriam found a solution of the difficulty.
"Why not send to Rabbi Eleazer at Tchernigof?"
Hirsch gazed at his wife in silent admiration.
"To the bal-shem?" he asked.
"Why not? When Chune Benefski's little boy was so sick that they thought he was already dead, a parchment blessed by the bal-shem brought him back to life. Is Mendel less to you than your own son would be?"
"God forbid," said Hirsch; then added, reflectively: "but to-day is Thursday. It will take a day and a half to reach Tchernigof, and the messenger will arrive there just before Shabbes. He cannot start on his return until Saturday evening, and by the time he got back Mendel would be cold in death. No; it is too far!"
"Shaute!" (Nonsense!) ejaculated his wife, who was now warmed up to the subject. "Do you imagine the bal-shem cannot cure at a distance as well as though he were at the patient's bedside? Lose no time. God did not deliver Mendel out of the hands of the soldiers to let him die in our house."
One of the most fantastic notions of Cabalistic teaching was that certain persons, possessing a clue to the mysterious powers of nature, were enabled to control its laws, to heal the sick, to compel even the Almighty to do their behests. Such a man, such a miracle worker, was called a bal-shem.