Science in the 19th Century Periodical

The Comic Annual [1st] [2nd]

Introductory Essay
2nd Series Volume [1]  (1842)
Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 1–107.

Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg. A Golden Legend

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Exploration, Disability, Instruments, Scientific Practitioners, Wonder, Palaeontology, Chemistry, Phrenology


    Miss Kilmansegg is born into a family possessing vast wealth in gold. At her Christening 'the Book of Pray'r was so overrun / With gilt devices, it shone in the sun / Like a copy—a presentation one— / Of Humboldt's Humboldt, Alexander von (Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von) (1769–1859) DSB
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"El Dorado" (17). As a young woman her horse runs away with her, and she is dazzled by 'A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints' (33). Badly injured, she has a leg amputated and replaced by one in solid gold. It was considered 'the great event, / Through every circle in life it went, / Like the leg in a pair of compasses' (40). '[W]ith men of scientific rank, / It made as much stir as the fossil shank / Of a Lizard coeval with Adam!' (41). Of all evil spirits, there is none so much as that of 'Party' which requires a 'cooling, antiphlogistic speech' (44). Miss Kilmansegg has a dream in which men of all spheres, including 'The Man of Science', worship her (62); she becomes transmuted into a golden idol—'gold, all gold, from her gold little toe / To her organ of Veneration!' (63). At her wedding, the page 'look'd, so splendidly clad, / Like a Page of the "Wealth of Nations" Smith, Adam 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell
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' (72).



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 108–20.

The War with China

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Short Fiction, Drollery

Subjects:

War, Gender, Narcotics, Chemistry, Vulcanology


    The narrator's father, uncle, and aunt are discussing the war with China. His aunt cannot understand going to war over opium, which she had always thought 'a lulling, soothing sort of thing, more likely to compose people's passions than to stir them up' (108). She thinks the 'Sulphur question' quite a different thing: 'That's all about brimstone and combustibles; and it would only be of a piece if we were to send our men-of-war, and frigates, and fireships, to bombard Mount Vesuvius'. The narrator's father laughs to himself at the 'proposed Grand Display of Pyrotechnics!'. (109)



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 121–30.

An Open Question

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Poetry, Satire, Drollery; Afterword, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [3]

Illustrators:

J Leech Leech, John (1817–64) ODNB
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T H, pseud.  [Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Subjects:

Amusement, Zoological Gardens, Religion, Temperance, Piety, Animal Behaviour, Natural History, Morality, Anthropomorphism, Class, Fieldwork, Geology

People mentioned:

Andrew Agnew Agnew, Sir Andrew, 7th Baronet of Lochnaw (1793–1849) ODNB
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    The poem addresses the proposal that the Zoological Society Gardens Zoological Society of London —Gardens
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should be closed on Sundays. Each verse ends with an appeal to the fictional embodiment of canting propriety: 'But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?'. Hood points out that the gardens are not sites of carousing like tea gardens or public houses. He asks: 'What is the brute profanity that shocks / The super-sensitively serious feeling', and makes some droll suggestions, such as pelicans 'presenting bills on Sunday' (122). Various other comic speculations are made concerning possible behavioural misdemeanours of the animals. Hood thinks Sabbatarians resemble zoo-keepers, in wishing to cage up people like beasts. He cannot think Sunday would be 'a bit diviner' for stopping happy children from thronging 'to the gates of Eden Minor'; nor can he understand why natural history should be considered 'Unnatural because it's Sunday' (125). He asks rhetorically how the beasts are to feed 'sinful fantasy' in view of the moral example which they set, and their status as 'Creatures of the Great Creator's hand'. 'Better it were if, in his best of suits, / The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, / Should spend a leisure hour amongst the brutes, / Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday' (126). Hood enquires: 'what raised so Protestant a fuss / [...] But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus / Had somehow mixed up Dens with their Theology?' (127). The illustration captioned 'Dens' Dens, Pieter (1690–1775) WBI
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Theology Dens, Peter 1832. Dens's Theology: Extracts from Peter Dens, On the Nature of Confession, and Obligation of the Seal, 8 vols, Maynooth: [n.pub.]
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' (facing 128) depicts a crocodile in formal dress offering a lion in a cage a joint of meat in one hand and a pamphlet in the other, the only legible words on which are 'Tract' and 'Flesh'. The illustration 'A Screw Loose' (126) depicts a terrified man with his hair standing on end recoiling from a snake, which has reared up into a corkscrew shape, and which has evidently escaped from some cages in the background. Hood concludes that if the 'Saints Zoological' are allowed their canting with respect to lions, then 'sure as fate they will deny us next / To see the Dandelions on Sunday' (128). The 'Note' following discusses the claim of Sabbatarians that all kinds of breaking (including house-breaking and the breaking of heads) result from Sabbath-breaking. It begins with an anecdote about a Scottish professor who, caught hammering at a geological specimen on a Sunday walk, was gravely accosted by a peasant who said: 'Eh! Sir, you think you are only breaking a stone, but you are breaking the Sabbath' (128). The illustration captioned 'Holding Forth' (130) depicts a man in sober attire feeding a bear from the wall of an enclosure by holding out a bun on a long stick.



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 131–236.

The Friend in Need. An Extravaganza, after Sterne

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Short Fiction, Drollery; Afterword, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [4]

Illustrators:

J Leech Leech, John (1817–64) ODNB
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T H, pseud.  [Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Subjects:

Zoology, Medical Practitioners, Disease, Religion, Morality, Instruments, Truth, Error, Cultural Geography, Natural History, Palaeontology, Discovery, Societies, Geology, Fieldwork, Physiognomy, Phrenology, Psychology, Crime, Pharmaceuticals, Medical Treatment, Controversy, Metaphysics, Status, Periodicals, Vaccination, Authorship, Expertise, Race, Quackery, Mesmerism, Miracle, Speculation, Experiment, Homeopathy, Hydropathy, Popularization, Encyclopaedias, Periodicals, Feeling

People mentioned:

Galen, Galen (129/30–199/200) DSB
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Aristotle, Aristotle (384–322 BC) DSB
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Aulus C Celsus, Celsus, Aulus Cornelius (fl. c. 25) DSB
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Hippocrates of Cos, Hippocrates of Cos (460–370 BC) DSB
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Robert James, James, Robert (1703–76) ODNB
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Erik Pontoppidan, Pontoppidan, Erik (1698–1764) WBI
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Prince Rupert of Bohemia, Rupert, Prince and Count Palatine of the Rhine and 1st Duke of Cumberland (1619–82) ODNB
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Mathias de L'Obel, L'Obel, Mathias de (1538–1616) DSB
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Lambert A J Quetelet, Quetelet, Lambert-Adolphe-Jacques (1796–1874) DSB
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James Morison, Morison, James (1770–1840) ODNB
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Claude A Seurat, Seurat, Claude Ambroise ('Le squelette vivant' or 'L'homme anatomique') (1798–c. 1840) WBI
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John Elliotson Elliotson, John (1791–1868) ODNB
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Publications cited:

Millingen 1837, Millingen, John Gideon 1837. Curiosities of Medical Experience, 2 vols, London: Richard Bentley
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Bright 1827–31, Bright, Richard 1827–31. Reports of Medical Cases, Selected with a View of Illustrating the Symptoms and Cure of Diseases by a Reference to Morbid Anatomy, 2 vols, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green
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Lancet Lancet (1823–1900+) Waterloo Directory
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Wilson 1799–1804, Wilson, Alexander Philip 1799–1804. A Treatise on Febrile Diseases, Including Intermitting, Remitting, and Continued Fevers, Winchester: Robbins; London: Cadell and Davies [and 3 others]; Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute
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Percival 1819, Percival, Edward 1819. Practical Observations on the Treatment, Pathology, and Prevention of Typhus Fever, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Browne
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Macculloch 1828, Macculloch, John 1828. An Essay on the Remittent and Intermittent Diseases, Including Generically, Marsh Fever and Neuralgia: Comprising under the Former, Various Anomalies, Obscurities, and Consequences, and, Under a New Systematic View of the Latter, Treating of Tic Douloureux, Sciatica, Headach, Ophthalmia, Toothach, Palsy and Many Other Modes and Consequences of this Generic Disease, 2 vols, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green
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Pym 1815, Pym, William 1815. Observations upon the Bulam Fever: Which has of Late Years Prevailed in the West Indies, on the Coast of America, at Gibralta, Cadiz, and other Parts of Spain; with a Collection of Facts Proving it to be a Highly Contagious Disease, London: J. Callow
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Dickinson 1819, Dickinson, Nodes 1819. Observations on the Inflamatory Endemic, Incidental to Strangers in the West Indies from Temperate Climates, Commonly Called the Yellow Fever [...]: To which is Added an Appendix Containing Abstracts of Official Reports, London: Callow, Underwood, and Burgess and Hill
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Lavater 1775–78, Lavater, Johann Kaspar 1775–78. Physiognomische Fragmente, zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntinis und Menschenliebe, 4 vols, Leipzig; Weidmanns Erben und Reich; Winterthur: Heinrich Steiner und Compagnie
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Le Brun 1698, Le Brun, Charles 1698. Conférence de Monsieur Le Brun premier peintre du Roy de France, chancelier et directeur de L'Academie de peinture et de sculpture. Sur L'expression générale & particulière, Paris: E. Picart le Rom
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Armstrong 1818, Armstrong, John 1818. Practical Illustrations of the Scarlet Fever, Measles, and Pulmonary Consumption: With Observations on the Efficacy of Sulphureous Waters in Chronic Complaints, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy
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Cooke 1831, Cooke, William 1831. Caution to the Public; or, Hints upon the Nature of Scarlet Fever, Designed to Shew, that this Disease Arises from a Peculiar and Absolute Virus, and is Specifically Infectious in its Mildest as well as in its Most Malignant Form; Including Practical Remarks Upon Asiatic Cholera, and other Epidemics, 2nd edn, London: Highley
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Buchan 1769, Buchan, William 1769. Domestic Medicine; or, The Family Physician: Being an Attempt to Render the Medical Art More Generally Useful, by Shewing People What is in Their Own Power Both with Respect to the Prevention and Cure of Diseases. Chiefly Calculated to Recommend a Proper Attention to Regimen and Simple Medicines, Edinburgh: Balfour, Auld and Smellie
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Arnott 1827–29, Arnott, Neil 1827–29. Elements of Physics; or, Natural Philosophy, General and Medical, Explained Independently of Technical Mathematics, 2 vols, London: Underwood
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Brome 1640 Brome, Richard 1640. The Sparagus Garden: A Comedie. Acted in the yeare 1635 by the then Company of Revels, at Salisbury Court, London: Francis Constable
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    The narrator is addressed by an ignorant sailor: 'Verily, the marine zoology already possessed a sea-urchin, a sea-cow, a sea-bear, a sea-dog, a sea-horse, and now there is a sea-ass!' (137). The narrator professes that since he is writing on a Quaker subject, he cannot be provoked: 'I am no longer one of those who wear a nose like the nob of a surgeon's night-bell, and must rouse up whenever it is pulled' (138).

    The story concerns a Quaker, Jaspar Duffle, who has scarlet fever. A long digression details the interjection of a 'medical student from Lant Street', who argues that all medical authority and reason is against the idea of a Quaker having a fever. He claims: 'They've no nervous irritability—no peccant humours—no nothing to ferment with—all cold and phlegmatic' (141). To the student's suggestion that Quakers have a low pulse-rate, the narrator replies that they would be interesting to sound 'with a moral stethoscope'. The medical student considers morals 'all twaddle'; he has sounded a Quaker with 'the real instrument—a capital tool, made by John Weiss Weiss, John (fl. 1831–51) WBI Clifton 1993
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himself'. The student gravely invokes lists of medical authorities, often mixing the names of real experts with comic and sometimes fabricated names. He refers to a medical case being possibly in 'Boerhaave's Boerhaave, Hermann (1668–1738) DSB
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Dogmas' (the reference is probably to his Aphorisms Boerhaave, Hermann 1709. Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis: In usum doctrinæ domesticæ, Lugduni Batavorum: Johannen vander Linden
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), but continues: 'or Reed's, Reed, Andrew (1787–1862) ODNB
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or Murray's Murray, Patrick Aloysius (1811–82) ODNB
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', naming religious leaders currently prominent for their dogmatic views. (142) He insists: 'Ask Bell Bell, Sir Charles (1774–1842) DSB ODNB
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if he's Handy Bell, Charles 1833. The Hand: Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design, London: Richard Phillips
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, or go to the surgeons, Seddon Seddon, Thomas (1793–1864) ODNB
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[a leading cabinet-maker], or Cubitt Cubitt, Thomas (1788–1855) ODNB
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[a leading master-carpenter], or Carpenter Carpenter, William Benjamin (1813–85) DSB
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, any of our top-sawyers' (143).

    In another digression the narrator details the interjections of 'Prudence' concerning the difficulty of identifying 'Truth': 'the terrestrial truth, at least, is as subject to modification as our mortal selves;—for instance, / GEOGRAPHICALLY / AND / CHRONOLOGICALLY' (144). Prudence gives as an example of the first, the 'Great American Sea Serpent', which while a real truth in New York, would shrink away to nothing as it crossed the Atlantic, so that off Greenwich it 'would have no longitude at all' (145). Prudence gives examples of the second proposition, that 'Truth is affected Chronologically'. A century ago, even 'Credulity' would have 'scouted' the Megatherium or Mastodon, but 'now we have Mantell Mantell, Gideon Algernon (1790–1852) DSB
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-pieces of their bones'. (146) According to Prudence, there are 'more such prodigies to come true'. A field trip of the 'Royal Geologists Geological Society of London
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—with Von Hammer at their head'—is imagined taking place in Tilgate Forest in the year 2000. They are represented at work like labourers and artisans, turning up fossilized objects of the nineteenth century: 'a petrified bachelor's-button', 'a stone tom-tit', 'a marble gooseberry-bush', and so on. (147) In search of larger finds, they exhume 'another and a greater Bony Part' (148). The process is described in detail: it is the 'first Lord-knows-what that has been discovered in the world!' They decide that it is a dragon and speculate that all the legends of St George are true; however 'a stony-hearted Professor of Fossil Osteology' announces that all the teeth are molar, and that it lived on 'undressed salads'. (149) Prudence provides a tale of preposterous Chinese whispers to explain how Izaak Walton Walton, Izaak (1593–1683) DSB
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came to tell his disciples that 'Barnacles produce Geese!' (152).

    The narrator gives an account of Duffle's delerium, sometimes in spoof medical phraseology ('De Beurre's theory of Mental Deliquescence' (152)), with physiognomical and phrenological observations. Duffle exemplifies the 'psychological fact, well known to physicians, that a man or woman in a delerium will prove to be acquainted with matters whereof they were supposed to be [...] ignorant' (178). A long digression on the evils of curiosity involves a phrenological description of a murderer. The illustration captioned 'The Very Head and Front of my Offending / Hath This Extent, No More' (186) depicts a criminal in chains being phrenologically examined while a studiously attentive group stands around.

    Duffle's health not improving, his wife sends for the principal apothecary at Tottenham, Jonathan Brumby. An account is given of his humorous dealings, as 'what is called a Parish Doctor', with 'some sort of Nurse in the parochial Infirmary, [who] was waiting for the poor people's medicaments' (188). He has a reputation as a very clever man, partly because of a punning misunderstanding of his interest in 'Metaphysics' (192). He bleeds for everything: 'his Lancet beat Wakley's Wakley, Thomas (1795–1862) ODNB
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hollow—as to the numbers who took it in' (193). Enraged by reading a pamphlet against bleeding (Wiesécké 1837 Wiesécké, Henri 1837. De l'influence pernicieuse des saignées, Paris: Béchet Jeune
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), he bleeds Duffle to a very great extent. The bandage comes off in the night, and Duffle looses further blood, dreaming that he has been vaccinated again by Edward Jenner Jenner, Edward (1749–1823) DSB
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, and that it is 'warm milk from the cow' that is flowing from his arm (196).

    A digression follows in which the narrator discusses with Prudence the dangers of writing a narrative on a medical subject without appropriate expertise. Prudence asks: 'Are you sure that you are qualified to practise even at Hottentottenham, and to treat a Black Fever, let alone a Scarlet?' (197), and queries: 'you never, by Magnetic Clairvoyance, looked through and through your sick neighbours, till, like Dr. Hornbook, you could name and prescribe for every disease in the parish?' (198–99). Duffle's recovery is dependent on the narrator's skill, who through ignorance might at last be obliged to 'make him survive by a miracle' (199). Prudence observes that a new version of Robinson Crusoe Defoe, Daniel 1719. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years, All Alone in an Un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, Near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having Been Cast On Shore By Shipwreck, Whereon All the Men Perished But Himself. With an Account How He Was At Last as Strangely Deliver'd By Pyrates, London: W. Taylor
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has been rendered necessary as a result of its medical errors, which must have resulted in the death of the hero. In another digression, Prudence makes the claim that even 'professional men' sometimes make errors 'which end often in Tragedy, and sometimes in Comedy, or Farce'. The story is told of 'Doctor Seaward, who conceived the notion [...] that all complaints of the head [...] were to be cured by Sea-Sickness' and decided (unsuccessfully) to prove it experimentally. (202) A report to the same effect by 'French Physicians' is quoted (207). The illustration captioned 'A Pleasure-Boat' (207) depicts a portly man inspecting a small sailing boat named 'The Stomach Pump'. The narrator considers the cures that different kinds of therapists would have recommended for Duffle's desperate condition, including a 'Counter-Irritator' and 'Dr. ***** [who] would have supplied him with a tube, and advised a good blow-out' (209).

    A 'regular Physician' is sent for; he is found inveighing against the use of brandy and salt as a cure, which he considers 'one of the signs of the times' (211). He contrasts the period when doctors wore their own peculiar costume and made a mystery of their art with the present period, in which the inception of 'cheap Encyclopedias and Penny Magazines' has resulted in patients insisting on 'analysing' their physic because it shows they are 'scientific!' (213). The illustration 'So much for Brandy and Salt!' (212) depicts a dishevelled and drunken-looking young man in seventeenth-century dress, leaning against a tree stump with a broken bottle in one hand and a salt-box in the other; the word 'Montem' inscribed on the tree stump indicates that he has taken part in a festival of that name, held by the scholars of Eton College, in which they processed in fancy dress to Salt Hill, near Slough.

    The physician reports that a blood transfusion is Duffle's only hope. His wife is most alarmed at this new idea and the mental images that it brings to mind, but the physician describes the nature of the procedure. A fine athletic man is found for the operation, which is described despite the imagined protestations of readers: 'Faugh! What an age it is for Cant and Pseudo Humanity! And yet who leaves off animal food?' (223). The doctor tells the blood donor that the lawyers will have to settle the question of their consanguinity and the question of whether the donor has any claim on Duffle's 'heritable property' (225). The illustration captioned 'That is my Blood You are Putting into You!' depicts a man with a kerchief tied around his neck eating black-pudding, as an apparition of a pig addresses him. Duffle recovers, and claims the transfusion made him 'more alive than before' (231). He witnesses a fist fight, against his wishes, only to discover that one competitor is his own blood donor, whom he has wished to thank. When the donor is knocked out, Duffle enters the ring and avenges him with a single massive blow.

    An afterword notes that the idea of transfusion is two centuries old, probably being consequent on Harvey's Harvey, William (1578–1657) DSB
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'great discovery' of the circulation of the blood. He quotes as evidence a comic play of Richard Brome Brome, Richard (1590–1652) ODNB
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, where blood transfusion is mooted with the object of improving social standing, a purpose 'very different' from that actuating transfusion 'as now practised by 'Dr. Blundell' Blundell, James (1790–1878) ODNB
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(236).



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 237–42.

Pompey's Ghost. A Pathetic Ballad

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Ballad, Drollery

Subjects:

Race, Disease, Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Quackery


    Pompey, a black servant, appears as an apparition to his white lover, Phoebe, to explain the circumstances of his death. Having contracted a fever, his master sent for a doctor; but 'though to physic he was bred, / And pass'd at Surgeon's Hall Royal College of Surgeons
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, / To make his post a sinecure / He never cured at all!' (239). The doctor thought his case looked 'very black' and prescribed cayenne and gamboge, and then madder and turmeric, but without turning his fever 'To Scarlet or to Yellow', and without preventing his 'dying black' (239–40).



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 249–86.

A Tale of a Trumpet

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Poetry, Drollery; Afterword, Extract, Spoof

Subjects:

Disability, Antiseptics, Statistics, Political Economy, Class, Medical Treatment, Instruments, Medical Practitioners, Surgery, Quackery, Pharmaceuticals, Physiology


    The poem recounts that Dame Eleanor Spearing was exceptionally deaf. She was deaf as 'Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy; / Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics, / were plugg'd with gums and antiseptics' (252). She consequently missed out on village gossip, a great privation, since 'she had much of the spirit that lies / Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys, / By courtesy called Statistical Fellows— / A prying, spying, inquisitive clan, / Who have gone upon much of the self-same plan, / Jotting the Labouring Class's riches' (254). She had tried numerous treatments, but all remedies failed 'though some it was clear / (Like the brandy and salt / We now exalt) / Had made a noise in the public ear' (255). She is visited by a pedlar who tries to sell her an ear trumpet at a high price having made exaggerated claims: 'The last New Patent—and nothing comes nigh it / For affording the Deaf, at little expense, / The sense of hearing, and the hearing of sense!' (257). He contrasts its advantages with the disadvantages of aural surgery, and disputes the effectiveness of such surgery. He recounts the instance of a Welshman who 'came from Glamorgan / On purpose to try a surgical spell', and paid a guinea only to have an 'acoustical drug' administered instead, which deafened him further: 'That's the way with your surgical gentry'. (263) The pedlar reflects on the difficulty of persuading the public to 'purchase a blessing' whether 'the Soothing American Syrup', 'Infallible Pills for the human frame, / Or Rowland's O-don't-o (an ominous name)' (265).

    An endnote gives a putative extract from an apparently fictitious work: '"Quid Pro Quo; or, A Theory of Compensations. By P. S." (perhaps Peter Shard), folio edition'. The extract, in archaic language, cites the occurrence of tinnitus in many deaf people as an instance of 'Mother' nature's tender kindness in making amends for any grievances. It gives a physiological explanation of the phenomenon in terms of the 'general Relaxing of the delicate and subtile Fibres of the Human Nerves, and mainly such as belong and propinque to the Auricular Organ' (284).



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 289–92.

Speculations of a Naturalist. "Can an Oyster Think?"

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Miscellaneous, Drollery

Subjects:

Natural History, Animal Behaviour, Reason, Phrenology


    Discusses the sedentary habits of the oyster in humorous terms, and declares that it seems primâ facie impossible that such a creature should think. 'In spite of Spurzheim Spurzheim, Johann Christoph (1776–1832) DSB
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, who affirms that the substance of the human brain resembles that of an oyster, it is difficult to believe that there is any intellectual faculty in such a lump of animal blanc-mange—that it ever even thinks of thinking' (290). It is difficult to establish whether it has any thoughts. Even if it did have 'cogent Thoughts on the Corporation and Testaceous Acts' it is 'inevitably condemned to keep its Thoughts to itself'. Hood reports that his servant has brought a crab with an oyster attached to its carapace from the fish-market; he notes 'there is much seeming sagacity in the selection of an Amphibious reptile' to provide for 'occasional travels on land'. (291)



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 293–312.

Shooting the Wild Stag in Poland

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Introduction, Drollery; Letter, Extract, Spoof; Afterword, Drollery

Subjects:

Hunting, Astronomy, Expertise, Animal Husbandry, Breeding


    Hood introduces a letter from 'an officer in the Prussian service', with whom he has often hunted and fished. His friend reminds him of the face of the Polish captain when 'he saw us at our pike exercise, in the garden, myself with the rod, and you, like a grave physician, with your stop-watch in your hand, to give the patient his lawful time before death—so that the Captain mistook the operation for some scientifical experiment in Hydrostatics' (298). The Prussian officer has 'a sporting aim at a question which has not hitherto been hit by Sir John Herschel Herschel, Sir John Frederick William (1792–1871) DSB ODNB
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, or your British Association British Association for the Advancement of Science
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—namely, why there should be so many falling meteors in the November month?' He suggests that there must be 'so many shooting stars, because it is in the shooting season—but the astronomers must find out at what sorts of game'.

    A footnote refers to a letter from Charles A Bennet (5th Earl of Tankerville) Bennet, Charles Augustus, 5th Earl of Tankerville (1776–1859) WBI
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, read at the meeting of the British Association in 1838, on the subject of the wild cattle of Chillingham Park Chillingham Park, Northumberland
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. Hood notes: 'It seems to have escaped the memory of Lord Tankerville, as well as of Sir Walter Scott Scott, Sir Walter, 1st Baronet (1771–1832) ODNB
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, in their remarks on this subject, that such a breed of cattle is described as indigenous in the account of the Island of Tinian in Anson's Anson, George, 1st Baron Anson (1697–1762) ODNB
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Voyages Walter, Richard, comp., 1748. A Voyage Around the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. By George Anson, Esq.; Commander in Chief of a Squadron of his Majesty's Ships, Sent Upon an Expedition to the South-Seas, London: John and Paul Knapton
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'. (299)



Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 323–26.

Suspended Animation

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[Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Genre:

Introduction, Drollery; Letter, Spoof

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

T H, pseud.  [Thomas Hood] Hood, Thomas (1799–1845) ODNB
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Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Comparative Anatomy, Dissection, Menageries, Human Species, Cruelty, Physiognomy


    The illustration captioned 'Suspended Animation' (323) depicts animals hanging from a tree: a monkey by its tail, a parrot by its beak, and a spider by a thread. The introduction reports that a 'Professional Friend, who was engaged in the study of Comparative Anatomy' had become 'desirous of dissecting a Monkey' and had purchased one from a menagerie, requesting it to be killed and sent to him (323). When it arrived the next day, it was accompanied by a letter from 'James Baycroft' reporting the circumstances of its death. Because of its resemblance to a human, Baycroft and his coadjutor had decided to hang the monkey, which had proved difficult because of its 'repetid climing up the rope with his hind legs'. They hoped they would be paid an additional sum because of the 'shock to feelings with a hanimal we'd bean acquainted with for so manny years'. (324) Baycroft wished that there had been a 'siantificle Gentleman' present 'to studdy his dying fizzogomony'. He asks whether he and his coadjutor might be 'present at the cuttin on him up, having knowed him so long at the Managery it wood be a Pleasure to see the last on him and partikly his Interium wether like our own specius inside as well as out'. (325) An afterword reports that the animal was, in fact, still alive and jumped out when the hamper was opened, and that the doctor allowed him to 'live out his natural term' (326).