164 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



Again : cough may be produced by tubercles in 

 the lungs by inflammation of their mucous mem- 

 brane by inflammation of their coverings by 

 inflammation of their parenchymatous substance 

 by disease of the heart by disease of the liver 

 by an accumulation of water in the chest of mat- 

 ter in the chest, &c. &c. 



I will tell you what happens every day. One 

 of the faculty of ninnies gets a cough ; and meet- 

 ing with another, he is assured that so, or so, 

 or so, is a " fine thing for a cough." The 

 " fine thing for a cough " is straightway pro- 

 cured. Shortly, he has occasion to call on his 

 tailor; and his tailor incontinently recommends 

 him another "fine thing." The following week, 

 his tinker brings home a mended saucepan ; and 

 then the tinker's "fine thing" must have a trial 

 also. Then comes the butcher, and the baker, each 

 armed at all points with " the finest thing in the 

 world for a cough." But, somehow or other, the 

 cough still goes on" ugh, ugh, ugh," barking away 

 as before. Having frittered away a month or two 

 in these follies, he then does just what he should 

 have done at first he walks off to the doctor, who 

 finds that the cough was produced by inflammation 

 of the covering of the lungs, which the abstraction 



