" I have found a wing of his house turned into a hospital for sick men, and there I once spent a week in the company of two dismal nurses and a specialist in "Sprue."

I haven't seen this word in a long time, and don't remember much about it. I'll go look it up.

So I looked it up. No board member would care to read the
long paragraphs I found But I found one that gives an idea of the collection of symptoms and problems involved.

"Celiac sprue is a chronic digestive disorder in which damage to the lining of the small intestine leads to the malabsorption of minerals and nutrients."

It must have been very mysterious when Kipling learned the name.

When I worked in a foundry summers to get money for college,
a sprue was the place in mould where the molten metal was
poured in. And after the casting had cooled, and the mould
taken apart, the casting had protrusions formed when the molten metal cooled in the channel of the sprue in the mould. These had to be removed carefully to avoid damaging
the casting.

\Sprue\, n. [Etymol. uncertain.]
1. (Founding)
(a) Strictly, the hole through which melted metal is
poured into the gate, and thence into the mold.
(b) The waste piece of metal cast in this hole; hence,
dross.

2. (Med.) Same as {Sprew}.

sprue to me means the piece that held all the parts together in the plastic models that I used to build.

Dear etaoin: that of course was an extension from the
sprue in metal casting moulds. When pig iron is cast, the little channels which connect the pigs would be similar to the plastic rod to which you plastic parts were attached.