‘Sudden Breaking up of a Consultation’, 1835
Description
Mounted coloured lithograph, entitled ‘SUDDEN BREAKING UP OF A CONSULTATION. Weighty Arguments on both sides! ___ When Doctors Disagree, Who shall Decide.’, designed and lithographed by Charles Jameson Grant, and published by anon around 1835.
The traditional view of the medical practitioner depicted in caricatures is of a figure of limited expertise, this perception is not without some validity. In reality the medical practitioner for most of this period had negligible scientific medical knowledge and with only very limited choice of medication or treatment at his disposal, frequently offered little hope of providing an effective cure.
Thus, it is inevitable that the inflated and unrealistic claims of such figures was a common and repeated source of satire. This caricature depicts an invalid, beyond all cares, sitting in an armchair, wearing a nightgown and cap. He is surrounded by a great rioting mob of doctors who argue for their rival medicines, and brawl armed with their canes and even medicine b