Giving Up the Ghost or One Too Many

Dublin Core

Title

Giving Up the Ghost or One Too Many

Subject

Social satire, Medicine in art

Description

As in Hogarth’s Reward of Cruelty, the physician in Giving up the Ghost or One Too Many is associated with corpses, skeletons, and death. While the sleeping doctor is oblivious to everything, his patient succumbs in spite of discarded medications strewn under the bed. An apothecary bottle in his pocket points to the physician’s ineffectual treatments. Death has appeared at the window, holding a violent javelin and an hourglass indicating that the patient’s time is up. A representative from the undertaker has also arrived, bearing a mourning mute’s wand and a coffin on his back. The paper at the physican’s feet presents his indifference to the patient’s fate: “I purge I bleed I sweat em / Then if they Die I Lets em.”

Creator

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827)

Source

[no text]

Publisher

Thomas Tegg, London

Date

1809

Contributor

Debra Cashion, in collaboration with Elisabeth Barrett, '15

Format

Hand-colored etching; original dimensions, 246 x 355 mm

Language

[no text]

Type

Still image

Identifier

[no text]

Coverage

[no text]

Files

Giving up the Ghost (2).jpg

Collection

Citation

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), “Giving Up the Ghost or One Too Many,” The Anatomist: Early Modern Medical Satire, accessed March 28, 2024, https://anatomist.omeka.net/items/show/9.