DIXVILLE NOTCH, NH – Moms here have grown furious over one local doctor’s deceptively simple trick to cure her patients of various sundry illnesses and maladies, and the trick may not be what you think. It’s her Medicinae Doctor, earned through years of training and study at the prestigious Harvard Medical School and cemented with a trying and stressful residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Pamela, a local dishwasher, had this to say: “I don’t know what she thinks, coming through here with all her fancy pills and life-saving database of knowledge, but we got along just fine with exorcisms and those special plants that grow out back of Parson Dan’s place.”

Anna, the postmaster of the town, felt largely the same: “Here comes this lady, talkin’ the big talk, walkin’ the big walk, and now the apothecary is nearly out of business. Now I’m a pro-small-business, fiscally-sensible, free-market libertarian, but I just don’t see how she benefits our town.”

We caught up with Jennifer, the doctor in question, as she was attempting to stop an exorcism of a 19-year-old having a seizure.

“Stop, stop! He doesn’t need an exorcism, he just needs an anticonvulsant! I have one right here; please stop trying to choke Satan out of him! Thank you. Here, just give him one of these once per day with dinner.”

As we escorted Jennifer away from the scene, several of the residents glowered at us, whispered to each other and crossed themselves. One was examining the pill bottle with a look of suspicion.

We asked Jennifer what it was like to work in a place that quite clearly hadn’t evolved far beyond Salem during the witch trials.

“The people here are nice and all, I just wish that they would trust me a little more. I know that they’re set in their ways, and I think maybe they just don’t want to believe that science is as good a lifesaver as prayer and elaborate religious ritual. I mean, if they would give me a chance, I think they might even come around to accepting that alleviating pain isn’t a sin.”

Intrigued by the dynamics of a town straight out of the 17th century, we pressed her further for a story of how the town handled a relatively normal illness.

“One of the people here, Jeffrey, has had a headache for the past 12 years. I tried to give him some Excedrin® once, but when I got close to his house, these three old women linked arms to block my way and started chanting, I think in Latin. They were spitting and hissing and everything, and I tried to talk to them, but they seemed to get more and more angry. Poor Jeffrey.”

Attempting to verify this for ourselves, and to obtain a comment from Jeffrey on this story, we went to his house, only to be told by his “wife” that she had no idea who we were talking about, and that no Jeffrey had ever lived there, but that we were welcome to come inside for some of Parson Dan’s special tea, and to discuss our article. Fearing for our lives, we politely declined.