Doctors differ or Dame Nature against the College. Hand-colored etching.
Publisher Information: London: S. W. Fores, 1813.
[Williams, Charles (d. 1830).] Doctors differ or Dame Nature against the College. Hand-colored etching. London: S. W. Fores, 8 March 1813. 246 x 356 mm. Small tear in lower margin going through one word of the caption, traces of former mounting on the verso, but very good to fine.
Medical caricature showing four elderly doctors brawling in a parlor over a patient’s diagnosis, while the patient in his bedroom prepares to sneak away. “Dr. Emetic” insists that the patient suffers from “exfoliation of the Glands” and must be purged; “Dr. Sudorific” argues for “a pleurisie in the thigh” which must be “sweated away”; “Dr. Drastic” claims that “it is a nervous affection of the Cutis & the patient must immediately loose 18 ounces of blood”; while “Dr. Blister” declares that “it is an inflamation on the os sacrum” to be cured by the application of “14 blisters.” Meanwhile the patient, wrapped in a nightshirt, flees while declaiming “I say Dame Nature has relieved me both of the Cause & Effects while these learned disputants are deciding the nature of my complaint—so I’ll be off to save both my money and my Life.” Williams was chief caricaturist between 1799 and 1815 for the leading British publisher S. W. Fores, working in a style similar to that of James Gillray.
Book Id: 46318Price: $750.00