Cryptomedicine

On the planet Vivaldi, two field researchers, the anthropologist Sinus Ak and the physician Doa Mito travel through four tribal territories in order to study traditional folk medicine and newer unconventional therapies. In the Ezerite territory, they learn much from a natural healer who uses plants and herbs. He links them to a truck farm where a widow grows mushrooms and fungi used in many therapies. Here, they meet an advanced user of magnetic therapy. An inspector from the Ministry of Health sends an undercover agent to infiltrate this clinic as an assistant. Sinus and Doa learn how the power of magnetic tubes can be amplified and focused on ailing sections of patient bodies. The inspector decides to pose as a patient, but is identified and dies in a magnetic chamber. The clinic survives and continues. In Tilia Territory, Sinus and Doa deal with crystal therapy augmented by laser light radiation. The light expert, the physician, and the two making the study undergo arrest but refuse to turn on each other. No one is prosecuted for the gemstone therapy. In Boyanian Territory, traditional acupuncture is advanced through a new method of skin scraping that is superior to the use of tiny needles. Holographic microscopy enhances the therapeutic effects. An attempt by the head of the foremost hospital to halt, arrest, and prosecute those involved, including Sinus and Doa, fails and the latter two flee and escape the Boyanian authorities.