Deacon Sprong decided that Uncle Peter had the galloping asthma with compressed tonsilitis, and a touch of chillblainous croup on the side, aggravated by asparagus on the chest.
Deacon Sprong told Uncle Peter to drink a pint of catnip tea, take eight grains of quinine, rub the back of his neck with benzine, soak his ankles in kerosene, take two grains of phenacetine, and drink a hot whiskey toddy every half-hour before meals.
Deacon Sprong volunteered to run over every half-hour and help
Uncle Peter drink the toddy if it tasted bitter.
Then Deacon Sprong went home, and Uncle Peter's temperature came down about ten degrees, while his respiration began to sit up and notice things.
During the rest of the day every friend and relative Uncle Peter had in the world rushed in, suggested a couple of prescriptions, and then rushed out again.
Aunt Martha tried them all on Uncle Peter.
Before the shades of evening fell that day Uncle Peter was turned into a human medicine chest.
And to make matters worse, he took some dogberry cordial and it chased the catnip tea all over his interior from Alpha to Omaha.
Then Aunt Martha gave him some hoarhound candy to bite the dogberry, so it would leave the catnip alone, but blood will tell, and the hoarhound joined with the dogberry and chased the catnip up Uncle Peter's family tree.
But it cured the cold. Now all Uncle Peter had to do was to cure the medicine.