Art and epigram regarding science and medicine in relation to death : being a reprint of a communication from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (Section of the History of Medicine), 1914, Vol. VII, pp. 192-217 : together with an addition on epigram and art in relation to the excessive fear of death / by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Weber, Frederick Parkes, 1863-1962.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Art and epigram regarding science and medicine in relation to death : being a reprint of a communication from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (Section of the History of Medicine), 1914, Vol. VII, pp. 192-217 : together with an addition on epigram and art in relation to the excessive fear of death / by F. Parkes Weber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Amongst the bitterest attacks in France may be mentioned Leon Daudet’s “ Les Morticoles,” in which much of the medical teaching in Paris during the last decade of the nineteenth century is held up to ridicule and even to abhorrence. To some extent, a doctor having the care of an acute and serious case may be likened to a whist-player, who, however well he plays, may yet have such bad cards that it is impossible for him to win the game. Yet in other cases his cards may be so good that mistakes in playing do not cause him to lose the game. In yet other cases, however, the playing of one wrong card will give the game into Death’s hands. The design of a very striking modern German drawing is, I believe. Death playing a game of chess with a doctor for a human life (unless I am really thinking of Moritz Betzsch’s drawing of 1831—the devil playing a game of chess with a young man for his soul, an angel looking on). A modern satirical cartoon by “ Cynicus ” (Martin Anderson) represents “ Death and the Doctor ” playing cards over a coffin. The rather corpulent doctor, seated in a comfortable armchair, plays deliberately without the least appearance of excitement, whilst Death seems eager to finish the game. On the coffin are bags of gold, suggesting the financial importance of the result to the doctor. (Cartoon No. 22 of “ Cartoons, Social and Political,” by Cynicus, published at 59, Drury Lane, London, 1893.) There exist, of course, a very large number of satirical designs very popular ones on the physicians of King George III, namely, William Heberden the younger. Matthew Baillie, and Francis Willis, men at the head of their profession in Fmgland, and on the Quaker physician and philanthropist, John Coakley Lettsom, the founder of the Medical Society of London ; - “ The King receives three doctors daily— Willis, Heberden, and Baillie: Three distinguished clever men— Baillie, Willis, Heberden ; Doubtful which more sure to kill is— Baillie, Heberden, or Willis.” “ When patients sick to me apply, I physics, bleeds, and sweats ’em ; Then—if they choose to die. What’s that to me ?—I lets ’em.” These humorous lines, with Lettsoni’s signature at the end, have been (doubtless incorrectly) attributed by some to the physician himself. Several slightly different versions exist. The version which I have given above is the one authorized by J. C. Jeaffreson, in his very popular ‘‘Book about Doctors,” but Mr. G. Bethell has kindly drawn my attention to three other versions quoted on equally good authority in The Qentleman’s Magazine for August,