University of Virginia Medical Illustrations collection

Access and use

Location of collection:
University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400110
160 McCormick Rd
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Brenda Gunn
Phone: (434) 924-1037
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Restrictions:
Authenticated by Medicine Rara 185 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10016.

Summary

Extent:
42 items Illustrations are housed in individual sleeves.
Language:
English French Latin

Background

Scope and content:

Colored etching by G[eorge] Cruikshank: Source of the Southwark Water Works, or [headed] Salus Populi Suprema Lex. Published by S. Knight, [1832]. 51x32.5cm. Printed on broadsheet with text poem beneath: Royal Address of Cadwallader... water-king of Southwark [John Edwards]. Concern at pollution and threat to public health.

The satirical poem 'Royal Address of Cadwallader ap-Tudor ap-Edwards ap-Vaughan, Water-King of Southwark', published in 1832, is a comment on the pollution of the River Thames, the main water supply for London. The crowd chants "Give us clean water" and "We shall get the cholera" – 1832 being the year that a major cholera epidemic hit London. The writer of the poem and the people in the illustration appear to believe that cholera is spread by vapours from rotting waste – the miasma theory of disease. However, John Snow (1813-1858) discovered that cholera is a water-borne disease. Despite this, many physicians still accepted the miasma theory. The illustration was drawn by the artist and caricaturist George Cruikshank (1792-1878).

Inscription: Lettered with title, "Ex Marmore Antiquo," three lines of description of subject beginning "He grounded his Precepts upon Aesculapius. ...," and production details: "P. P. Rubens Del.," "I. Faber Fecit," and "Printed for & Sold by Tho: Bowles next the Chapter House in St. Pauls Ch. Yard and John Bowles at the Black Horse in Cornhill."

This satirical response to "fast living" centers on a figure whose left side is a skeleton holding a spade before a tombstone lettered with a quote from Romans 6.23, "The wages of sin is death," with other biblical admonishments below. The figure's right side is fashionably dressed living aristocrat standing in a parkland with a temple similar to one at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. Emblems of the Order of the Garter are part of the man's dress and items that refer to gambling and partying are strewn around his buckled shoe. These include part of a "EO" wheel (an 18th century game similar to roulette), dice and a shaker, cards, and a masquerade ticket to the Pantheon in London. A scroll that confirms the man's "Pedigree" suggests that rank offers no protection from mortality.

This cartoon by J. A. Wales.found in Puck on April 14, 1880 satirizes the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania, a diploma mill selling fake medical degrees in the later decades of the 19th century. "Professor Grind-Em-Out" is, no doubt, the school's "Dean," John Buchanan, who was finally arrested in 1880, due in part to his exposure in the popular media.

Etching depicting a group of male academics and students, many wearing mortar boards, gathered around a professor who reads form a book inscribed 'Datur Vacuum.'

Within a lugubrious coat-of-arms, Hogarth depicts three well-known quacks with a group of twelve portly physicians. The three quacks at the top of the print are Joshua Ward, perhaps the most famous charlatan of his time; Sarah Mapp, a well-known bonesetter; and John Taylor, an oculist. The bewigged physicians dispel the stench of death by sniffing the pomander attached to the top of their canes. According to Hogarth, proper physicians and disreputable quacks are all members of the same Company of Undertakers. The Latin caption, Et plurima mortis imago, translates as "And many are the faces of death."

5 figures: 1. extempore dressing on the Battlefield. 2. ward tent and apparatus for steaming throat and bronchial cases, Guy's Hospital. 3. (ditto), St. Mary's Hospital. 4. a bad accident case: London Hospital. 5. bath lift: Middlesex Hospital.

The caption of this image describes the 'Extraordinary Effects of Morison's Vegetable Pills', re-growing a man's legs overnight. Morison's Vegetable Pills were the brainchild of James Morison (1770-1840) and sold from 1825 onwards. Morison believed that all disease was caused by an impurity of the blood that could only be purged by his vegetable pills. The pills, a laxative based on a variety of herbs, including rhubarb and myrrh, were sold in chemists, grocers and even libraries. Morison believed that his pills could be taken in large doses but a number of deaths proved him wrong. Many labelled him a quack and his pills a poison. The print is by Charles Grant Jameson (active 1832-1850); artist: Grant, Charles Jameson; maker: J Kendrick; place made: London, England, United Kingdom.

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