THE MAN WHO HAS ALL DISEASES AT ONCE.
Imitate the cough. Put your hands on different parts of your body in describing your aches and pains. Wear a long dismal face. Bend forward and limp as you change your position.
Good Morning, Doctor; how do you do? I hain’t quite as well as I have been; but I think I’m some better than I was. I don’t think that last medicine that you gin me did me much good. I had a terrible time with the earache last night; my wife got up and drapt a few draps of walnut sap into it, and that relieved it some; but I didn’t get a wink of sleep till nearly daylight. For nearly a week, Doctor, I’ve had the worst kind of a narvous headache; it has been so bad sometimes that I thought my head would bust open. Oh, dear! I sometimes think that I’m the most afflictedest human that ever lived.
Since this cold weather sot in, that troublesome cough, that I have had every winter for the last fifteen years, has began to pester me agin. (Coughs.) Doctor, do you think you can give me any thing that will relieve this desprit pain I have in my side?
Then I have a crick, at times, in the back of my neck, so that I can’t turn my head without turning the hull of my body. (Coughs.)
Oh, dear! What shall I do? I have consulted almost every doctor in the country, but they don’t any of them seem to understand my case. I have tried everything that I could think of; but I can’t find anything that does me the least good. (Coughs.)
Oh, this cough—it will be the death of me yet! You know I had my right hip put out last fall at the rising of Deacon Jones’ saw-mill; it’s getting to be very troublesome just before we have a change of weather. Then I’ve got the sciatica in my right knee, and sometimes I’m so crippled up that I can hardly crawl round in any fashion.
What do you think that old white mare of ours did while I was out plowing last week? Why, the weaked old critter, she kept a backing and backing, ontil she backed me right up agin the colter, and knock’d a piece of skin off my shin nearly so big. (Coughs.)