When ill, mother knows best...

A flu epidemic is sweeping St Petersburg. Thousands of people are down with high temperatures and bad coughs. Reach for the drugs? One flu victim, YEVGENIA BORISOVA, got a little traditional Russian-style help from her mother.

"Jars?" asked my foreign colleagues? "What's that?" When I explained they looked at me as if I was a barbarian.

What the technique involves is the application of a couple of dozen small, thick, spherical jars to the back, after applying a flame to the inside of each to create a vacuum by burning out the oxygen.

When my mother comes over to do jars for me, everything should be arranged in advance -- I need to tune into the event.

The whole performance may remind outsiders of a shamanistic ritual. Perhaps my mother even seems like a witch -- for those who do not know that she is a trained physician.

Swirling some cotton wool firmly onto a fork, she douses it with something flammable -- vodka can be used at a pinch -- and sets a match to it.

Quickly inserting the flaming fork into each jar to burn out the oxygen, so creating a vacuum, she immediately applies each firmly to my back -- particularly the areas corresponding to the lungs.

For the next 20-25 minutes you must stoically bear the sucking feeling, preferably covered by a thick blanket for the sake of warmth.

Each jar sucks up the skin underneath it. My mother explains the effect of jars as attracting fresh blood from around the entire body to the troubled zone, so increasing circulation.

Foreigners who consider the technique outrageously backward should stop to consider that it was used for hundreds of years by European doctors. I don't object to using modern antibiotics, but nor do I condemn methods proven over centuries.

Having jars applied to your body is not painful, but it's a special sort of feeling. It feels like your entire skin is being sucked inside the spheres.

Movement is ill-advised. Coughing or sneezing is out. Even breathing is difficult, because inhaling is an effort.

Relief comes when mother takes the jars off. She removes them gradually, one by one. Somehow the pain seems to concentrate in the dwindling numbers of jars and finally, when the last jar is gone the relief is intense.

The procedure is completed when the resulting circular bruises are wiped with a cloth to remove the ashes that sometimes collect on them from the jars. Afterwards it is best to drink some tea with raspberry jam and to sleep.

Sets of jars can be found in every Russian hospital or polyclinic. Many people also apply them at home.

But not everyone can place jars. A high degree of skill is required in correctly doing so -- not the least because of the danger of setting the patient on fire. Hair should be secured, and nothing flammable should be around the patient.

The person applying the jars should have a degree of courage also. Applying a burning fork to a loved one is not for the faint of heart.

The trick is to hold the jar close to the skin when you burn the air out of it, and to apply it to the skin fast -- otherwise you lose the vacuum.

Good jars are considered those which produce bruising almost immediately, and which are difficult to disconnect from the body. because the suction is so strong.

At times of illness jars are usually applied every other day, alternating with mustard packs. But that's another story.