This case pertains to my very first life experience at the age of the
first school classes. It was not I, but a sister of my mother who
was ill. She lived in a village of Andreyevka, located 7 km from the
railway station of Itatka (Region of Tomsk). But I already was a
rather well-developed child to attentively observe and memorise all
varieties of that case. The aunt Ganefa, as I used to call her, fell
ill with a rather rare, but very dangerous, parasitic disease. It
was an echinococcosis of the liver. Insofar as I remember it
according to narrations of my mother, the aunt herself believed that
she had got that infection after having drunk water from a puddle or
wash on a hot day. I believe that it is a plausible reason.
Insofar as I know, she was operated on several times in the in
Novosibirsk, but not in Tomsk, which was located nearer to her
domicile. The last time two thirds or three quarters of her liver
were cut out. However, her doctors failed to cope with the parasite
and discharged her from hospital after having told that she would not
live longer than half a year. The disease was not treated but by
surgery by the official medicine at that time.
It was my mother who engaged herself to save the aunt Ganefa. At
that time I lived with mother and grandmother in Tomsk. A man gave
her a piece of advice. His name was never pronounced. I remember a
doctor's assistant being referred to. He must have been educated as
far back as before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, That is he was a
representative of the old pre-revolutionary Tsarist medicine. In any
case, I feel a great respect for him. In short, he advised to make
use of mercury dichloride. This mercurial was strictly forbidden to
use as a medication by official medicine at the time under
description. Well, the prohibition does not seem to have been
discontinued nowadays.
The prohibition was circumvented with the help of some friends. The
patient got a bottle of 500-700 ml. I do not know the precise
prescription to be used. But it seems that maximum one or two drops
per day were to be used because such a bottle sufficed for a long
time. The bottle having been emptied, my mother procured the
second, then the third, etc.
As a result, my aunt has lived for about 20 years, rather than half a
year, as her doctors promised. Moreover,
she is likely to have died more from old age, than from
echinococcosis. Last time I met her after my having graduated from
the university. She was at a venerable age. The only peculiarity
noticed by me was as follows: her whites of the eyes became yellow.
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