Cryptomedicine

By Clement Masloff

 On the planet Vivaldi, two field researchers, the
anthropologist Sinus Ak and the physician Doa Mito travel
through four tribal territories in order to study traditional folk
medicine and newer unconventional therapies. In the Ezerite
territory, they learn much from a natural healer who uses plants
and herbs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Mulberry Books
• Release date: Nov 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950850648

Clement Masloff

The author has been involved with science fiction and speculative literature since teaching himself to read in 1941-1942. He served in the Army as a linguist and translator in four Balkan Slavic languages. For several decades, he taught sociology in Ohio after graduating research in Russian social history. In his retirement years, he has been writing science fiction, a return to dreams of the early 1940s.

Book preview

21556.png

Copyright © 2019 by Clement Masloff.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher and author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. The authors and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

ISBN: 978-1-950850-65-5 [Paperback Edition]

978-1-950850-64-8 [eBook Edition]

Printed and bound in The United States of America.

Published by

The Mulberry Books, LLC.

8330 E Quincy Avenue,

Denver CO 80237

themulberrybooks.com

mulberrylogo_BW.png21494.png

I.

Sinus Ak had never before entered any of the tribal territories on his planet, but now he was riding on a passenger track-train across the dark green, heavily wooded forests of the country of the Ezerites.

A recently graduated university student of Anthropology, he had chosen the research topic of inherited, traditional medical practices in several of the subcultures of this region.

Sinus had been fortunate enough to win himself a financial grant to support him in his travel to and across these special reservations set aside for the preservation of their cultures. As he gazed out of the track-train window, his thoughts dwelled on the mysteries that lay ahead for him. The traditional medical means and therapies of the tribal groups here on Planet Vivaldi had never been studied in a scientific, anthropological manner. What might he be the one to discover in this uniquely unknown area of research? the young scholar wondered.

He forgot the oaks, elms, willows, and maples of the Great Ezeritian Forest as he dreamed of questions that he would soon be posing to the professional physician who had agreed by mail to serve as his guide and advisor, Dr. Doa Mito of Woodland City.

20940.jpg

As soon as the track-train arrived, Sinus found his way to the hotel where he had a room waiting for him. He took a quick lunch in a place next door, then started to find the doctor’s office where he had arranged an appointment with the licensed, conventional physician who had agreed to aid him in his field research in Ezerite territory, Dr. Doa Mito.

The streets of Woodland City, all of them it appeared, were lined with trees. People walking on the sidewalks had the appearance of typical Ezerites as Sinus expected: they were shorter than himself and displayed the vitelline skin color of egg yolk yellow. They possessed the low foreheads and high cheek bones of their tribal genetic inheritance.

The visitor soon found the office he was hunting for and entered to introduce himself to the female physician who had agreed to be his research guide into Ezerian folk medicine.

Sinus identified himself to the aide at the reception desk. The young woman led him onward to the private consulting chamber of her employer. He sat down there and waited only a minute for Dr. Doa Mito to enter the room through a side door.

She was a short, delicate body with her tribe’s egg yoke skin and low forehead.

Good morning, Dr. Ak! she greeted him. I am so happy to see you here in Woodland City. Are you ready to begin your investigation of our culture’s old, traditional kind of medical treatment before it is gone and forgotten?

Sinus rose to his feet and shook the small, thin hand that she offered to him.

Please be seated, she murmured sweetly as she made her way behind her coral business desk and sat down there.

For several seconds, the two strangers stared at each other as if both of them were composing their initial impressions of the other. It was Sinus who began to describe his plans for what he intended to accomplish in this tribal territory.

"My ambition is to acquire direct knowledge of the traditional medical therapies and methods used and passed on by the Ezerite culture. I aim to find out how much of that legacy can continue to be of use in our present-day life here on Planet Vivaldi. There can be no question that I shall have to begin with the rich pharmacopeia of natural plants and herbs that are part of your tribe’s historic inheritance.

I hope that you can help me make contact with at least one of the remaining plant-healers who still is in practice in the modern world of today, Dr. Mito.

The latter gave a warm, comforting smile. "Of course, I can and will bring you to such a practitioner. There are only a very few of them still around, because our official medical authorities frown on herbalism and what they term ethno-medicine. Over several generation, our licensed pharmacists have taken the most useful and effective traditional remedies and the so-called popular botany and rejected the bulk of the plant remedies from the past.

"I myself believe that there still remains much of potential medical value in the treasury accumulated by our local, unlicensed herbal healers. There is one particular old villager with whom I became acquainted years ago, when I was a young schoolgirl in the rural district where I was born. This person was considered a wise man of fantastic knowledge of forest plants by the ordinary members of our country community.

Would you like me to take you to meet this very old herbalist, Dr. Ak? I am certain that he has never met or talked to an anthropologist such as you, she inquired in a soft, welcoming tone.

What was he to say? Yes, of course. It would be marvelous to make contact with someone with a lifetime of experience in actually applying such traditional therapeutic methods.

Doa Mito gave an unexpected laugh. I was certain that you would be favorable, and I have made the arrangements for you to meet and see the old herbal healer, Rasgo Lgu. He is completely agreeable to a visit by you, and I will be free this coming weekend to drive you to the village in my engine-car. Will that be agreeable, my friend?

Yes, of course it will, replied Sinus with a wide, joyous grin.

20943.jpg

The asphalt road led through thick, shady deciduous woods. At the steering wheel of the small engine-car, Doa tried to prepare her passenger for what to expect from the herbalist they were going to meet with.

Old Rasgo has not seen or spoken with very many metropolitans such as you, she bluntly declared. "You are a lot taller than most Ezerites, no question about that. Your skin color is a rich tan that will be unfamiliar to villagers like him. Our eyes tend to be light-colored, while yours are a dark hickory brown.

It may take Rasgo a little time to become used and at ease with you, Dr. Ak.

Call me Sinus, said the anthropologist. As I will from now on use your first name of Doa.

The road began to descend into an open farming area. That is the village where we will find the herbalist from whom I have learned so much, she announced. I have long believed it to be a tragedy that the contemporary medical profession tends to ignore and disvalue the knowledge that folk healers like Rasgo possess. There is so much lost to modern practice by this general negative attitude toward this older but long-applied method of treating human pain and illness.

I agree with you, said Sinus with feeling. Much of great potential value has been lost. But research such as that we are going to be involved in can be helpful in preserving the knowledge and the methods obtained with great difficulty in the past by the inhabitants of territories such as this one.

II.

The old man’s small, crumbling cottage lay at the most distant end of the Ezerian village. As soon as the engine-car came to a stop immediately in front of it, the bent form of the aged healer appeared at the front entrance to the tiny structure.

He peered with surprise and curiosity at the vehicle from the city.

Once the two visitors were out of the car, Doa waved her right arm at the old man she was familiar with. Rasgo, we are here! I brought along with me the metropolitan man of learning who wishes to learn about our traditions of plant remedies.

The travelers approached and Doa made the introductions between the two males.

Rasgo offered his right hand to the tall stranger in a formal business suit who towered over him. As the pair shook hands with friendly vigor, Sinus noticed how dull the yellow of the old man’s face had become through time.

Shall we go inside and speak there? said the herbal healer in a gravelly voice. I brewed a pot of chamomile Tilia tea this morning that should give all of us some moments of pleasurable enjoyment. All at once, he broke out in an unexpected grin.

The two from the city sat down on small round stools while their host became busy pouring herbal tea from a kettle on a hot plate into ceramic cups. With surprisingly swift and agile movements Rasgo served the visitors the tea he had promised them. He took a creaky chair opposite the pair and took a welcome sip from the cup he had poured for himself.

Only after the threesome had finished their initial drinks did Doa begin to speak.

Our good man has traveled a considerable distance because he has set himself the task of studying and attempting to understand the traditional medicine based on plants and herbs that our Ezerian ancestors have passed on to us. I have told him that no one can inform him on that subject as much as you can, my dear Rasgo.

The old one looked directly at Sinus and smiled broadly. "Do you wish to know about which herbs to give the suffering for which illness? Is that it? Our people have a saying, a kind of simple folk wisdom about the matter. What they have been saying for centuries of time is this: for every ill, for every sickness, there exists a plant out in the field or the forest. If one will patiently hunt for it, that herb or grass can be found.

It may necessitate time and persistence, but the cure or remedy is out there in nature somewhere. The only problem or question is to identify and locate it.

That has to be what you live by, Rasgo, whispered Doa Mito. Am I right?

The old herbalist nodded yes. "Over many generations, our tribe has learned from experience, from both success and failure, what works and what does not. Almost everyone inside our territory is familiar with the positive effects of simple substances such as saffron, valerian, licorice, thyme, and lavender. But there are rarer, more obscure substances such as wormwood, lemon grass, skullcap, juniper berries, yellow gentian, coriander, and bitterbloom that can have miraculous effects in the restoration of health to an ailing person.

"Nature offers us a rich treasury of curative substances that grow on their own without human intervention.

"It is experienced individuals such as me, with a lifetime of reading and actual practice, who can diagnose and choose the correct plant remedy for a given suffering patient.

I have taught myself how to prescribe out of the abundant storehouse that nature provides for the inhabitants of the Great Ezerian Forest. Rasgo grinned with self-evident pride. My past successes guarantee that I can do as promised.

"There must be a long list of materials available for practical use in all that is covered by your kind of