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.

    6/34 (page 4)
    Acute epidemic diseases, such as plague, “cholera morbus,” “typhoid” fever (“typhus abdominalis ” of German physicians), “ typhus ” fever (“typhus exanthematicus ” of German physicians), have been often represented emblematically as demons in works of art. Some modern weird and fanciful designs, representing the deadly power of infectious diseases, I have mentioned elsewhere,’- and many others of various periods exist, especially in regard to cholera epidemics. In this con- nexion an amusing article is that by Dr. J. H. Alexander, in the Medical Press (London, 1913, vol. cxlvii, p. 229), headed “Are Micro- organisms the Demons of the Ancients’?” He points out how strongly the facts now proved to be true about pathogenic and other micro- organisms resemble what was believed by the ancients to be true regarding demons, and what is still believed to be true regarding them by the superstitious of modern times in various parts of the world. Amongst their remarkable characteristics in common might he instanced : their universal presence, especially about decaying bodies and dark, damp, sunless places; their power of entry into living bodies; the minuteness of the space taken up by them; and their invisibility to ordinary eyes. The ravages of more chronic infections and other diseases, such as tuberculosis, syphilis and cancer, have been similarly fancifully represented, and in this connexion it may be recalled that from Baby- lonian and Assyrian times (cf. Professor Morris Jastrow, jun., Lecture at the Eoyal Society of Medicine, London, October 10, 1913 ^), all kinds of diseases, but especially acute disease, were regarded as caused by demons. Some violent, painful, non-infectious diseases, such as an acute attack of gout, have, like infectious diseases, been symbolized as a demon attacking part of the body—witness James Gillray’s famous coloured print of the “demon of gout” attacking the ball of the big toe, one of the most popular of this caricaturist’s works, published in 1799 by Mrs. H. Humphrey, at 27, St. James’s Street, London. Amongst satirical representations of deaths from non-epidemic diseases, that by Ch. Aubry, 1822, entitled, “ L’Apoplexie foudroyante ” (a bloated-looking, thick-set man, stretched out on a couch in the dining- room), may specially be noted.® This may be compared to Grand- ‘ See F. P. Weber, “Aspects of Death iii Art and Epigram,” Loud., 2nd ed., 1914, pp. 84-90. - Proceedings, p. 113. ■' Sec Hollander, “Die Karikatur und Satire in der Mediziu,” 1906, plate iii.