Oleksiy Kanivets, a famous healer from Uzhhorod and creator of a wonder-working balm, believes: «I must make my way in the world. Mankind needs me.»

Kanivets treated the survivors in Ufa under threat of two or three years' imprisonment. Such was an attitude to the creator of unique medicines - an anti-burn balm, an analgesic tincture, agents against hepatic and renal calculi, radiculitis, and heart attacks. All 30 dying persons who had voluntarily given themselves over to Oleksiy Kanivets recovered. Local doctors accepted the results enthusiastically.

«If his balm is tested successfully and is approved for wide usage by the Pharmacological Committee of the USSR Ministry of Health, a new salubrious anti-burn drug will appear, likely to be called Kanivets' Balm,» the Government Herald observed authoritatively in August 1989. But then the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Times change, and so do regimes. Years pass. But the roll of benefactions to the Merlin of Uzhhorod keeps growing: Kanvets has already helped 3000 patients.

The author of this publication is acquainted with one of his patients. The man was victim of a brawl in the hamlet of Irshava. He was beaten until believed dead, doused with oil, and burned to a crisp. But the human torch stayed alive. Now there are almost no signs of burns on his face, the skin restored on his burned fingers. His fingers are still crooked like bird's clutches but he can already pick up bread and small things, although doctors then could offer him nothing better but the amputation of both hands.

In half an hour after lubricating the burns with Kanivets' balm fever and acute pain are alleviated. Then, day by day, the skin grows cleaner, and in 2-3 weeks there are no traces of the burns at all. The scars cicatrize, and the skin regains its former appearance, the burnt eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair accelerate their growth. The balm should be used 4-6 times a day to keep the skin moist continuously. The wounds do not even need bandaging.

«I want to prove,» the healer says, «that my ointment is not of the worst quality. People call me and come from everywhere. I send the medicine by mail to Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other cities. This medicine cures bedsores perfectly, so that there is no need for skin transplantation. My medicine is making a small revolution in medicine. Ukrainian and foreign scientists are convinced that the regeneration of a large piece of skin is impossible, its burnt layer cannot be restored, and see the only way out in transplanting donors' skin. My balm requires no transplantation.»

Customs house Lt. Col. Oshovsky was burnt by lightning near Uzhhorod. His pulse was almost inaudible. The doctors did not allow him to take my unlicensed drug. But his wife smuggled them to him. He got up on the fifth day, although, according to folk superstition, anyone struck by lightning cannot be helped.

The healer came to Uzhhorod from Donbas 34 years ago. Since his adolescence, he has liked bees. But, according to the healer, the bees cannot feel comfortable in the miners' land.

In his twenties he went to war. While fighting, the Nazis killed his father, brother, uncle, and grandfather.

After the war he was a metallurgist in Dnipropetrovsk. He had learned his principles of healing from his dead grandfather. In 1947 he cured gastric ulcer of his acquaintance, chairman of a collective farm, using the root of the eagle-owl herb. The ulcer disappeared after two months, to the doctors' great surprise.

The ingredients of this balm are the most valuable products of the vital activity of bees: propolis, royal jelly, and vegetable oils. He was destined to check the balm on his own six-year-old son, who scalded himself badly: the skin on his shoulders peeled off, and his hair came out. But soon the scald disappeared.

Kanivets will keep the composition of his balm secret until the Kyiv Pharmacological Committee is convinced of its medicinal value and grants it a patent. Until that time, regularly postponed by the bureaucracy, the healer will not disclose his secret.

And his concept is rather far from being abstract or idealistic.

«What would you like in case of official acknowledegment?» I asked Kanivets.

«Three wards at a hospital in Kyiv. Kyiv is the center. It's easier for people to get there. I would ask to test my balm before it is put to everyday medical practice: I am ready to treat 100 serious patients, and simultaneously the best specialists have to cure the same number using the best methods and drugs. It is only after the comparison of results that I'll begin to treat and produce my drug. First, we'll provide Ukraine with the drug, then Russia, and afterwards the world as a whole. It can be produced even in such quantities.»

Uzhhorod