Sensational news about the mysterious "surgeons without a scalpel", or healers (from the English word heal - to heal), living in the Philippines, excite people for more than a dozen years.
The first healer to become known outside the Philippines was the healer Eleuterio Terte. He began to treat people in 1926, at the age of 25. And at first he used a knife for operations, for which he soon paid the price - he was accused of "illegal medical practice."
With difficulty extricating himself from the investigation, during which he made an oath promise not to take the scalpel anymore, Eleuterio Terte began to think about how to live on. And unexpectedly for himself, he discovered that he did not need a knife: he could act with his bare hands.
The trained hands of a well-trained person are actually a terrible weapon. A skilled special agent can kill an enemy with one finger. And for example, in China for a long time practiced healers who easily pulled out a bad tooth, grabbing it with two fingers.
History is silent on how and on whom Eleuterio Terte trained, learning to open the patient's body with his bare hand, without leaving any scars on it.
He became famous after helping a certain American officer, and director Ormond recorded his manipulations on film and released the film to a wide distribution.
Then Dr. Steller, professor of physics at the University of Dortmund, joined the case. He was not too lazy to write a whole work about Eleuterio Terta, in which he admitted that, observing "operations without a scalpel", he did not find any "sleight of hand".
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The professor assured that Filipino healers can perform surgical operations with their bare hands, without hypnosis, without anesthesia, without pain and infection.
He was echoed by the Japanese physician Isamu Kimura, who examined the blood after a series of Terte operations and found that it belongs to the operated patients. True, sometimes the analysis showed that the clots are of inorganic origin, that is, they do not belong either to humans or animals, but look like dyes. But Terte explained this by the fact that these clots are nothing more than the materialization of the disease itself, "bad energy" in the hands of the healer.
Then, as usual, the boom began. Terte's example was followed by dozens of his enterprising fellow countrymen, and now there is a whole healer industry in the Philippines.
Healers are grouped mainly in the Baguio area, claiming that there is some kind of special space environment, thanks to which local healers acquire inhuman strength.
In fact, Baguio is the only cool place in the Philippines with wonderful, serene landscapes. Tourists from all over the world willingly go to Baguio. It is because of the abundance of tourist clients that healers have chosen these places.
Not so long ago, Baku journalist Sharif Azadov visited the Philippines. Here's how he describes meeting one of the most famous healers.
“Alex Orbito is a short, skinny 43-year-old man with pleasant features. He first discovered the abilities of a healer when he was sixteen years old. He studied with his father, also a healer. But Alex's son, unfortunately, does not have the ability to concentrate energy, and therefore went to a regular medical college …
Orbito works every other day for 45-50 minutes a day, it can no longer. I must rest, replenish the lost energy. He does not operate on children, he is afraid of damaging the mental centers, he heals only with manipulations.
Orbito says goodbye to journalists, says that he needs to concentrate before operations. And when they start, they will come for us. The large room has a glass partition, behind it is the operating room. Before the operation begins, all those present sing psalms.
When Orbito entered the partition, everyone fell silent. Taking the Bible in his hands, the healer bent down - the silence became complete. So he sat for fifteen or twenty minutes.
The operating room is an ordinary room with a narrow table. Two nurses in ordinary jackets and skirts, the healer himself in the same T-shirt that he was wearing during our conversation. Several jars of oily liquids are striking. Actually medical here - only cotton swabs.
There was no long hand washing either, the healer simply rinsed his hands in a jar of white liquid. And so after each operation - I dipped my hands in a jar and wiped it off with the same towel.
The first patient was a woman. Heeler used quick short movements to squeeze small bumps out of her breasts, while the pinkish blood was barely flowing. The woman's face was calm, reflecting neither pain nor discomfort.
Then a woman with an umbilical hernia lay down on the table. “I stood close to the operating table and timed all operations,” Sharif Azadov writes. - Before my eyes, the healer's index finger, after a small massage, suddenly entered the stomach, like into dough.
There was blood, but only a little, and Orbito pulled out a piece of meat. Then he began vigorously stroking this place, as if pulling, oiled it with oil, and the woman calmly got up from the table. There was not a trace of suffering on her face. The operation lasted forty-three seconds.
He also removed the appendix, however, in more than a minute. Once upon a time, my appendix was also removed, and, if I'm not mistaken, it lasted more than an hour. Again, before my eyes, the healer's fingers entered the human body easily, without tearing the tissue or pressing. The patient's face is calm, slightly alert, but no more. The healer can be seen doing something inside. Then he removed and showed the patient the appendix and threw it into a white basin.
I asked Orbito how he connects the ends of the vessels, and he explained that he does not sew them together, but kind of seals them with energy. It is interesting that he works with one hand, and with the other palm he creates a biofield. Bending over, I carefully looked at the place from where the appendix had just been removed before my eyes. Not a seam, not a trace of a wound …"
This is how Sharif Azadov ended his story. But here is a description of the same events belonging to another eyewitness, more prepared, and therefore looking at things more soberly.
“It’s not easy to figure out whether the operation is really being done or is it just an appearance,” said Mikhail Lazarevich Gershanovich, professor, doctor of medical sciences, specializing in oncology. “At first, the actions of the healer make a stunning impression. Even for people who are skeptical. And I was not just skeptical - I was obsessed with the idea to experience the work of healers on myself, to examine it from the inside.
Gershanovich traveled to the Philippines with Anatoly Karpov as his doctor when he played the world championship match with Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio.
In a conversation with journalists - Oleg Moroz and Antonina Galaeva - Gershanovich said that, being a convinced materialist, and, moreover, a doctor, he did not take into account all the testimonies of exalted eyewitnesses - you never know what a person will seem to be in a state of suggestion.
“Therefore, the question of whether there is a“Filipino miracle”did not interest me,” said Gershanovich. - I was firmly convinced: he is not. The laws of nature are unshakable. It is impossible to cut or push the skin with your fingers, subcutaneous tissue is impossible. No films, no evidence will convince me otherwise. At least until I try the Filipino "knife" on my own skin. Moreover, if they open me up, I don’t believe it, I’ll look for how they did it. Here, with such a mood, I went to the healers. However, apart from curiosity, I had another incentive: at that time, Anatoly Karpov's father was seriously ill. And I wanted to look in folk medicine, including the methods of healers, for something that could help him. Alas, I did not find anything like that, and this further strengthened my skepticism.
Moreover, from the intervention of the healer Gershanovich himself suffered personally. He asked to remove the tumor in the area of his left eye. It was the so-called basal cell carcinoma, which is still being debated among doctors, whether it is a malignant tumor or not (it does not give metastases).
While waiting for his turn, Gershanovich had the opportunity to observe the work of healers and their patients. It seemed to him surprising that almost all healers have some kind of basic profession that feeds them - locksmith, mechanic, bricklayer … And in between - when the influx of tourists - are engaged in chiropractic. In addition, it struck Gershanovich that the patients from time to time were people whom he had already seen in other healers in the same role …
In general, the more Gershanovich looked closely at the work of the healer, the more he became convinced: there was no surgery here, there were skillful tricks and nothing more …
- But now my turn has come, - the professor continued his story. - I asked to remove the tumor under the left eye and the varicose node on the leg (by the way, very convenient for demonstration - it would be immediately visible whether it was removed or not). Heeler readily agreed, warning, however, that he must pray over me.
Finally the healer said that the spirit had appeared and he was ready to proceed. For a long time, he painfully squeezed the tumor with iron fingers, tenacious like ticks - nothing happened.
After that, the tumor began to grow rapidly, and I had to hurry with its removal. Not in the Philippines, of course, but already at home, with an excellent surgeon. So there was only a small scar left in the memory of that adventure. But he would not have been, Gershanovich is sure, if he had turned to the same surgeon immediately, even before his trip to the Philippines.
As for the varicose veins, the healer also crumpled it up, as a result, thrombophlebitis developed, which then also had to be treated for a long time using conventional methods …
In general, as statistics show, 90 percent of healers' patients, upon returning to their home, are forced to seek medical help again - already to ordinary doctors.
The remaining ten percent is divided roughly equally. Five percent are for people who did not need any surgery at all; their malaise was only the result of being too suspicious. And finally, the remaining five percent is accounted for by people whom the healers have actually helped.
For example, in one patient, a healer removed an atheroma (benign tumor) on the chest. But this atheroma was special, like a large eel - it was associated with a blockage of the sebaceous gland, had a way out and, therefore, could easily be removed by simple squeezing.
Here, in fact, is the whole story about the secrets of Filipino healers. Conclusions, as they say, do it yourself. It remains for me to add to this the mention of one more piece of evidence I found on the Internet. Former doctor Stanislav Suldin, having come to the Philippines, decided to get rid of gallstones at the same time with rest. Heeler performed the operation and said that everything was in order now.
However, upon returning to Moscow, Stanislav still had to undergo a cholecystectomy - an operation to remove stones from the gallbladder.
“Healer was not around, the anesthesia was normal, and our surgeons, guys from my stream at the institute, operated on,” Stanislav writes. “For which I thank them very much.” And he adds: “The guys did not find any traces of the healer's interference, they just did their job. They are practitioners and do not believe in miracles”…