The paper focuses on a few topics crucial for the study of medical beliefs and practices among the traditional Ashkenazi population of Eastern Europe. Primarily based on Yiddish memoirs and Jewish memorial books (yizker bikher), published since the last decades of the nineteenth century, it is supported with references to other ethnographic sources in Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish and other languages. A closer examination of this material leads to the conclusion that popular beliefs and practices were not haphazard, but constituted a rich heterogeneous medical system. The analysis casts a new light on help-seeking behaviors and enables better comprehension of their natural and mythological meaning.