Article selection by N. A. Fadeeff | Note by H.P.B.
In Astrachan, on the Caspian Sea, there was, during our stay there, an apothecary named Ossey (probably his sons are still there). He suffered terribly from toothache, whether neuralgic or otherwise, I do not know. Probably the former, because the extraction of several teeth on that side did not relieve him. Somebody told him that there lived in the town an old retired soldier who “talked away”1 most effectually the toothache. Ossey found out the soldier-wizard, who did talk away his pain in a few minutes, so that it never returned.
1. This is the literal translation of the popular and mystic term “zagovarivayt” [заговаривать] in Russia. For the good men and women in towns and villages who play at local medicine-men (and the people will have no others) literally “talk away,” by means of some strange words which no one understands but themselves, and by breathing on the water, all kinds of diseases and ailments most effectively.