PREFACE

In setting [my] hand to this work, I chose as my chief purpose to make my writing useful to those who are deprived of the means to consult a physician. With this aim, taking as my guide the public medical manuals published in the Russian language, I endeavored, first and foremost, that the style of the language of this medical guide should be comprehensible generally even to the village Armenians; and second, that the prescribed remedies should be readily at hand, in every place and easily obtainable by everyone. In a word, with great care I saw to it that in those instances where the sick person is deprived of enjoying the aid of a physician, this book should, as far as possible, show his keeper and caregiver the method of ministering a beneficial remedy to the pain. Naturally, tradition and experience have, even without this, already spread among the common people many kinds of truly salvific cures and remedies against various diseases and aches. However, very, exceedingly often, unconscionable and greedy old women and men are not content with applying such-and-such an *mhlam* [salve], such-and-such a *malan* [ointment], and such-and-such a *hap* [pill]—which they learned from their grandfather or grandmother—only upon such-and-such a known disease; rather, when by chance or by understanding they cure one or two patients with a single medicine, they gain a reputation thereby, and thereafter freely and boldly appropriate to themselves the sacred office of a *hekim* [healer]. If the poor and naive folk send their sick one to the grave at the hands of these executioners, they attribute the cause to fate or to the irrevocable will of God; but if by chance one in a hundred receives relief, they inflate the reputation of the fraudulent *hekim* and fill his pocket with silver. Now, our work can also, to a considerable degree, forestall such abuses; for some of these self-proclaimed *hekim*s, who are more conscientious, more sharp-witted, and curious, can learn many things from the counsels we have published. It is not only these false *hekim*s who gnaw at the pockets and suck the blood of the naive folk; when they finish their business—that is, when instead of curing the patient they make his condition even graver—the arena (*meydan*) is then left to book-diviners [*grbats*], card-readers [*t’ught’ bats’ anogh*], diviners of lots [*k’aghak’ ynknogh*], and various other charlatans [*mardavat*], who, deceitfully pretending to be revealers of God’s inscrutable will, quietly nod their heads. These make up for what the deceitful *hekim*s left unfinished; the naive folk, blindly accepting the delirium issuing from their mouths as pure prophecy, drag their sick one over mountain and valley until they either commit him to the grave or bring him back cured by some power unknown to them. To bar the way to these deceitful prophets is all the more the duty of the priests; but unfortunately, seeing no effective care on their part in this regard, we see with sorrow the meaning of the Russian proverb verified among us: "As is the priest, so is his parish." Yes, among other civilized nations, the priest accomplishes a great thing at the bedside of the sick; he not only strengthens his soul with the hope of heavenly, eternal life, but also alleviates his bodily afflictions...