Teazle said he would make up a prescription that would make a sure business of it, as he always did when he was in doubt. "He would prepare a compound of the particular medicines used for the particular diseases he had mentioned, and fire at random, and some of the shot would hit, he knew."
"Gracious! doctor!" exclaimed Longbow, "what comes of the rest on 'em?"
"All passes off—all passes off," answered Teazle glibly, with a flourish of the hand, "through the pores of the skin—" continued Teazle; "and you must also take four quarts-er water, two pounds-er salt, a gill-er molasses, a little 'cumfrey root, some catnip blows (but mind don't get in any of the leaves; that'll kill her), stir it all up together, and soak her feet just ten minutes; then get five cents worth-er sassyfarilla, three cents worth-er some kind of physic, pour in some caster-ile, and I'll put in some intergrediences and stuffs, and will give it inwardly every two hours; and in the morning I will 'quire agin into the condition of the patient."
This, reader, was the result of Teazle's call. Mrs. Longbow was really suffering under an attack of bilious fever.
In a few days there was an uproar among the physicians of Puddleford. Dr. Short and Dr. Dobbs had united their influence and tongues together, and Teazle was denounced as a quack and a fool. Short and Dobbs never united for any other purpose but the abuse of Teazle. Sometimes Short and Teazle abused Dobbs, and sometimes Dobbs and Teazle abused Short. Short declared that "Mrs. Longbow had nothing but a kind of in'ard strictur', and a little salts would clear it right out."
Dobbs said it "was either that or the pantod of the heart, and that Teazle's medicine would lay out the poor soul as cold as a wedge."
I endeavored to ascertain by Dobbs what he wished us to understand by "pantod of the heart."
Dobbs said it was "unpossible for him to explain it without the books—it was something that laid hold of the vessels about the heart, and throw'd everything into a flutter."
The war went on—Squire Longbow's friends finally joined the force of opposition to Teazle—and in two or three days Teazle was ejected very unceremoniously from the Squire's house, and Dobbs took his place.
The first thing Dobbs did, when he was fairly installed, was to gather up, and pitch headlong into the fire, all of Teazle's remaining medicines. He wondered whether Teazle "really intended to kill Mrs. Longbow! Perhaps he was only a fool!" The whole system of practice was now changed. A new administration had come into power, and with it new measures. Dobbs "didn't know but he might raise Mrs. Longbow, but he couldn't hold himself responsible—Teazle had nearly finished her—but he would try."