The article is devoted to the conflicts between the corporation of doctors of the Apothecary Chancery (Aptekarsky Prikaz) and representatives of other medical practices: private physicians, faith-healer, as well as the perception of such practices in the bureaucratic environment. The author considers bureaucratic mechanisms arising in the course of such conflicts, when the corporation defines a physician as an self-proclamated and, not considering him a part of its group, refuses to recognise his professional competences. At the same time, private practice itself is not a barrier to entry into the professional community, and being labelled an impostor, hence a charlatan, becomes a way of resolving intra- and inter-group conflicts. Such conflicts are different in each of the three examples with representatives of different social groups, but they equally illustrate the fact that a person who commits unconventional actions becomes an impostor in the eyes of the community.
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