This was an aged Spanish Jew, unclean and cadaverous, with patriarchal
grey beard and piercing eyes, a man renowned for his marvellous cures
among the peasantry.
He was regarded more or less as a wizard, though his wizardry consisted
solely in a knowledge of natural remedies, and the exercise of a power
which would have been described at the Paris Salpetriere as hypnotic
suggestion. By the aid of this he was able to inspire his patients
with the faith so necessary to a successful treatment.
Michael was not fettered in any way by the ordinary conventions of a
practitioner. He had neither drugs nor instruments of his own
wherewith to effect a cure on ordinary lines, and what he had seen of
herbalists in Spain had inspired him with a vast respect for the
simplicity and success of their methods. The wooden box contained a
quantity of leaves which, steeped in scalding water, and applied to the
patient's throat, possessed the power of reducing the inflammation and
drawing out the poison through the pores of the skin. Of their
efficacy Michael entertained not the slightest doubt.
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