It could not fail.

He reeled off the string of hideous diseases with a lyrical lilt.

It was his own discovery.

An obscure chemist's assistant in Bury St.Edmunds, he had, by dint of experiments, hit on this world-upheaving remedy.
"When I found what it was that I had done, Mrs.Middlemist," said he solemnly, "I passed my vigil, like a knight of old, in my dispensary, with a pot of the cure in front of me, and I took a great oath to devote my life to spread it far and wide among the nations of the earth.

It should bring comfort, I swore, to the king in his palace and the peasant in his hut.