At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century, a myriad of amazing announcements appeared in the media: all kinds of traditional healers announced their readiness to cure any ailment, certified parapsychologists and members of the Russian Academy of Occult Sciences promised every patient a complete restoration of health, and “hereditary sorcerers " and the "magicians" offered to eliminate the "damage" and remove the "evil eye" for a small bribe. The unprecedented flourishing of witchcraft and quackery testified to the unconditional loss of the prestige of official medicine. Since such a crisis usually matures over many years, the question is quite appropriate: who was at its origins? To a certain extent, the biography of Dr. Zakharyin, a famous Moscow professor in the 19th century and one of the founders of the rampant commercialization of medical services and the associated dehumanization of medicine, allows us to answer it. For a wide range of readers.