Some years ago an elderly gentleman had long been suffering from asthma; for over twenty years. He took all measures and tried different methods of both recognized and unrecognized medical treatments, but unfortunately all proved in vain. At last he gave up all treatment and was getting fits daily. He was brought to such a deplorable condition that he was left to suffer. He was in the habit of taking tea. One afternoon as usual he drank his cup of tea--afterwards he noticed that his oppression in the chest was much less and that he was feeling unusually better, so much so that he felt himself a different being. This led him and his friends to inquire into the cause of it. He immediately inferred that the relief was due to the drinking of the _tea_, although he habitually drank the same tea but never before had experienced any such changes. So this change he attributed to something in the tea. The servant who prepared the tea was sent for and questioned. His reply was that he made the tea as usual and there was nothing new in it. The residue of the teacup was carefully examined, nothing was found there, but on examining the tea-pot a dead cockroach was discovered. So it was concluded that this _infusion_ of cockroach did the gentleman a world of good. The very day he drank that _cup of tea_ he had hardly any fit of asthma at night, and in a few days he got entirely well to his and his friends' surprise. The accounts of his Providential recovery were communicated to some of his friends--one of them, not a medical man, but quite an enterprising gentleman, took this into his head and resolved to try whether cockroach does any good to other asthmatic patients. For this purpose he got a lot of cockroaches, put them alive into a quantity of boiling water and mixed it after filtering the water when cool with almost the same quantity of the rectified spirit of wine, so that it might last for some time without getting soured. This new mixture (or tincture) he began to try in each and every case of asthma that he came across. The dose was a drop each time, 3 or 4 doses daily, and more frequently during the fits of asthma. Within a short time he made some such wonderful cures that people began to flock from different parts of the country to his door. Soon the number of attendants was so great that he had to manufacture the medicine by pounds and all this medicine he distributed to patients without any charge. He has records of some of the cases.