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
Rights
Relation
Format
Hand-colored etching; original dimensions, 246 x 355 mm
Language
[no text]
Type
Still image
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Files
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.