in color, there was a picture of a person whose stomach was sliced
four ways, like a twenty-cent pie, and then folded back neatly,
thus exposing his entire interior arrangements to the gaze of the
casual observer. However, this party, judging by his picture, did
not appear to be suffering. He did not even seem to fear that he
might catch cold from standing there in his own draught. He was
gazing off into space in an absent-minded kind of way, apparently
not aware that anything was wrong with him; and on all sides he
was surrounded by interesting exhibits, such as a crab, and a
scorpion, and a goat, and a chap with a bow and arrow--and one
thing and another.

Such was the main design of the cover, while the contents were
made up of recognized and standard varieties in the line of jokes
and the line of diseases which alternated, with first a favorite
joke and then a favorite disease. The author who wrote the
descriptions of the diseases was one of the most convincing writers
that ever lived anywhere. As a realist he had no superiors among
those using our language as a vehicle for the expression of thought.
He was a wonder. If a person wasn't particular about what ailed
him he could read any page at random and have one specific disease.
Or he could read the whole book through and have them all, in
their most advanced stages. Then the only thing that could save
him was a large dollar bottle.

Again, in attacks of the breakbone ague or malaria it was customary
to call in a local practitioner, generally an elderly lady of the
neighborhood who had none of these latter-day prejudices regarding
the use of tobacco by the gentler sex. One whom I distantly recall,
among childhood's happy memories, carried this liberal-mindedness