Medical advice for parents regarding illnesses associated with Christmas and children. For example, warns that 'little boys cannot eat too much at the festive period', and that icing from cakes induces 'indigestion and sickness'. Parents are advised to 'bleed the governors on returning to school' and people with 'delicate lungs' are informed that exposure to cold winds will terminate their complaints.
Seasonal 'Directions to Medical Students'. For example, it suggests that with the appearance of wintry weather they should 'find out where the new men hang their Macintoshes, and fill the pockets with snow, during the lectures on Materia Medica'.
Notes the rising of mercury, but 'this deponent' does not indicate whether 'in the heavens or the barometer'. Notes the date of the opening of the Royal InstitutionRoyal Institution of Great Britain
CloseView the register entry >>, which it claims was founded 'for the encouragement of science and the discovery of mares' nests', and the date on which William Herschel'sHerschel, Sir William
(1738–1822)
DSB
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> planet was discovered.
Seasonal 'Directions to Medical Students'. For example, they are urged to sign their own attendance schedules and to make money by selling 'bones and preparations' at a Bloomsbury location.
Advice includes wearing respirators indoors and, following the adage 'Early to bed, early to rise', retiring to bed at six in the morning and rising at four in the afternoon.
Notes the date of the introduction of the 'vaccine virus', the 'matter which concerns cows'. Notes the birthday of Edward JennerJenner, Edward
(1749–1823)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, who 'repealed the small-pox'.
Medical Practitioners, Education, Universities, Lecturing, Societies
Seasonal observations on the lives of London medical students. Describes the summer courses offered by the 'exceedingly facetious' Society of ApothecariesWorshipful Society of Apothecaries of London
CloseView the register entry >>. Lectures concern such topics as 'Intoxication' and 'the Hot Negus and the Caledonians'.
Gives advice on miscellaneous meteorological phenomena. For example, notes that 'you may safely calculate on rain, if you plan a pic-nic party, or a visit to a Vauxhall Gala', and that 'fine weather may be obtained by leaving home with a macintosh, clogs, and a shabby gingham umbrella'.
Seasonal 'Directions to Medical Students'. Notes that on 'botanical excursions', students never manage to reach further than public houses and that the 'professor's class is generally composed of two new men and the skeleton overhead'.
Medical Practitioners, Education, Botany, Dissection
Seasonal observations on the lives of London medical students. For example, notes that 'dissecting-rooms lighted from the ceiling become anatomical hothouses'.
Medical Practitioners, Education, Commerce, Schools
Seasonal observations on the lives of London medical students. Notes that medical students returning to their studies 'exchange their anatomical labours for pauper ones at five shillings a case' and develop anxieties about presenting themselves as candidates at Christ's HospitalChrist's Hospital
CloseView the register entry >>.
Medical Practitioners, Education, Anatomy, Textbooks, Lecturing
Describes the activities of students and lecturers on returning to medical school. For example, notes that London medical students 'begin to learn the bones of the head from an old edition of William Cheselden'sCheselden, William
(1688–1752)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>AnatomyCheselden,
William 1713. The Anatomy of the Humane Body, London: N.
Cliff [and 2 others]
CloseView the register entry >>, while lecturers 'return from fishing in the lakes to fishing for pupils'.
Seasonal medical advice. For example, urges readers to encourage the 'Cholera Morbus', 'a disease of infinite service as regards the alimentary canal', by eating such foods as 'cheap pickled salmon and undressed cucumber'. Notes that brilliant white teeth can be produced by eating 'vegetable and mineral acids of all kinds'.
Medical Practitioners, Education, Hospitals, Surgery
Seasonal observations of the London medical scene. For example, notes that 'hospital surgeons hunt up the lame and halt, to make a grand operating field-day for the commencement of the season', and that pawnbrokers 'display tempting dissecting-cases at seven and sixpence'.
Punch, 2 (1842), [10].
New Regulations to be Observed by Students Qualifying for Medical Practitioners
Medical Practitioners, Education, Physiology, Anatomy
Medical students are required to complete such tasks as 'having attended at least one ball per week at the Lowther-rooms' and to have learnt physiology 'from the first volume of PunchPunch
(1841–1900+)
Waterloo
Directory CloseView the register entry >>' and 'Anatomy and Muscular Development from the sparring at the Coach and Horses in Frith Street'.
Medical Practitioners, Education, Dissection, Amusement, Surgery
Seasonal 'Directions to Medical Students' includes such advice as purchasing fireworks 'for a grand pyrotechnic fete in the dissecting-room during the lecture upon the Practice of Physic' and putting a 'sixpenny maroon' firework in the body of the anatomical subject being dissected by 'a new man' against whom one bears a grudge.
Notes the birthday of Humphry DavyDavy, Sir Humphry, Baronet
(1778–1829)
DSB
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, the 'inventor of the safety lamp, by which he became Lord Chancellor of Coal-pits, & Grand Guardian of Miners'.
Seasonal observations on the lives of medical students. For example, notes that 'Barrels of oyster-shells are now forwarded to the resident apothecary at the hospital; and two gastrocenmii muscles, with the tendo Achollis cut short, are packed in small fish baskets and sent to the house-surgeon as a pair of soles'.
Spoof report of paper on 'printing on the brain' by a Major Veryslowsky at the Shadwell Institution for the Encouragement of Human Everything. Veryslowsky describes cases of people who exhibited formidable memory. Introduces his system of 'phrenotypics' in which parts of books to be memorised are 'chalked up on the wall in very large letters'. Notes that the contents of James Grant'sGrant, James
(1802–1879)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>The Great MetropolisGrant, James 1836.
The Great Metropolis, 2 vols, London: Sanders and Otley
CloseView the register entry >> can be memorised with the words 'Grant', 'Quackery', 'Pure', and 'Nonsense'. Notes that Veryslowsky's audience left cheering and exclaiming '"Quackery", "Pure Nonsense" in conformity with' the lecturer's lesson.
A fiery attack on the greed created by the mechanical systems of manufacture. A court-room confrontation is described in which a puny, 'famine-stricken' labourer sues the manufacturer whose systems of production have forced his family into poverty. The defendant employs a 'Sergeant MAMMON' as his lawyer, who throws 'the scorn of disbelief upon the plaintiff' and advises him to return to 'his cellar' where he will starve with the rest of his family. The plaintiff then identifies the evils of extending manufactures which, following Robert Peel'sPeel, Sir Robert, 2nd Baronet
(1788–1850)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> view that a connection exists between increased demand for manufactures and increased machine power, he believes will 'bring into play more machinery and not employ manual labour in anything like the rate of the increase in the machine department'. Breaking away from this drama, the author then attacks the progress of machinery as a 'terrible calamity' that has 'made the strong man so much live lumber'. He goes on to ask how 'statesmen and philosophers' are going to 'prepare for the crisis' given that 'tens of thousand-thousand hands' will be 'made idle by the ingenuity of human mind', and believes that the 'multitude' will 'shout for an adjustment of interests'. Concludes by insisting that the 'steam-engine [...] must and will carry statesmen back to first principles. As it is machinery is a fiend to the poor; the time will come when it will be as a beneficient angel'.
Written in patois, it depicts two black people discussing 'cramanology'. Caesar, who has just attended lectures on the subject, describes the practice to Cuffey, who is unacquainted with the subject. Summarises it as 'de hills and de hollows ob de skull, de nobs and de no-nobs, to show de natural genus ob de interlect'. Caesar feels Cuffey's skull and informs his surprised friend that he possesses well-developed organs for 'eatin fish' and singing.
Explains that the 'sustaining faculties' of the stomach are 'particularly active amongst lower classes of the community' and that the 'Sentiments or Affections draw us by a mysterious and irresistible power towards those viands which are calculated to afford us more refined pleasure'. Thinks his system of 'stomachology' will 'form a valuable indication of human character' and can be used to choose partners, servants, and politicians.
Medical Practitioners, Hospitals, Education, Physiology, Medical Treatment
One of twelve woodcuts and poems in a series entitled 'Punch's Valentines!'. Depicts a medical student smoking a pipe and drinking a pot of beer, while standing before a young woman who sits behind a shop counter. Notes that the medical students 'grind instruction just enough to pass / St George'sSt George's Hospital
CloseView the register entry >>, Guy'sGuy's Hospital
CloseView the register entry >>, North LondonNorth London Hospital for Consumption
CloseView the register entry >> and King's CollegeKing's College, London—Hospital
CloseView the register entry >>', and thirst alike for 'half-and-half' (a mixture of two malt liquors, commonly ale and porter) and 'knowledge'. The student offers his heart, 'aorta, valves and all', to the young woman. Notes that medical students' 'funds incline' to 'cheap hats and boots'. The young woman eschews the hospital's 'dull gloom' and practices the 'Physiology of Deglutition'. The student declares to her that he'll 'ne'er know peace until our hands / Shall form a "ganglion" with Hymen's bands'. Thinks his beloved is 'as precious and dear as sulphate of quinine'.
Ponders the meaning of 'the world'. Believes this is the 'age of astronomy' owing to the fact that 'more worlds are mentioned in daily conversation' than William HerschelHerschel, Sir William
(1738–1822)
DSB
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> ever observed. Identifies several worlds in society including 'the scientific world' which is 'full of smoke and noise as the birthplace of steam ought to be'. Thinks the British Association for the Advancement of ScienceBritish Association for the Advancement of Science
CloseView the register entry >> should identify which of these is 'by pre-eminence, the World'.
Describes his experience of opening a new surgery. Notes that his patients are 'select rather than numerous' and explains how he managed to raise his reputation by treating a case of a dislocated shoulder. Explains that he has thrown away the labels on his bottles of medicine because of the illiteracy of people in his neighbourhood. Describes a case in which a local patient rubbed her leg with a poisonous lotion. The illustration shows a small girl being served in an apothecary's shop.
Considers that a newspaper advertisement for a 'Reflecting Oven' says a great deal for the 'march of the intellect' and anticipates the arrival of an 'Imaginative Gridiron' and 'Sensible Warming-Pan'.
Describes a visit to the Victoria TheatreVictoria Theatre
CloseView the register entry >> to see a 'new drama'. Went along to be 'electrified', having been attracted by an advertisement boasting the play's 'powerfully electric situations'. Reports that the 'conductor' of the 'stage electricity' was Miss Vincent. Describes other 'powerfully electric situations'.
Geology, Scientific Practitioners, Prognostication, Medical Practitioners, Controversy
Concerns the earthquake that failed to hit London. Tells a 'Dr Dree' and 'Dr DeeDee, John
(1527–1608)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>' that despite their 'prophecies of woe' the earthquake amounted to 'no / very great shakes at all'. Draws the moral that 'for once two Doctors did agree' but that 'they were wrong'.
Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Hospitals, Disease
Continues the story of Joseph Muff from Joseph Muff, 'A Few Lines from Mr Joseph Muff', Punch, 2 (1842), 87. Describes Muff's surgery and introduces his assistant, Jack Randle. Reports that Muff has succeeded in causing cases of fever, rheumatism (which Muff hopes will prove 'chronic'), and ringworm, and is trying to introduce ringworm into a local school. Describes Randle's highly dangerous technique for 'keeping people awake who have taken laudanum' and his skill at 'toothdrawing'. Introduces the story of 'Mr Rapp's Farewell Feast', Mr Rapp being a house-surgeon to 'St. Tourniquet's Hospital'. Believes that 'next to imprisonment for debt there are few positions in life more cheerfully exhilarating than that of house-surgeon to a hospital'. Lists many reasons why a surgeon's life is 'enviable', including being surrounded by 'scenes of the most peasant and mirth-inspiring description', 'breathing the purest atmosphere in the world', and 'lunch upon hospital cheese'. Notes that few medical students refuse invitations especially if they come with offers of 'unlimited half-and-half [a mixture of malt liquors, often ale and porter], inexhaustible tobacco-jars, or uncounted pipes'. Adds that Muff has left his assistant and accepted Rapp's invitation to his farewell feast.
Depicts a drunken scene in a room. One drunken figure smoking a cigar converses with another holding a glass of wine. Another man is slumped on a table and the feet of another figure poke out from under the table-cloth. A book by Immanuel KantKant, Immanuel
(1724–1804)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> lies on the floor. The smoker agrees with the drinker's notion of 'Corporeity' but points out that it 'presupposes—(hic)— the idea of absolute spirituality—(hic)—perfection' and is incompatible with the 'definition of space'. The drinker replies 'Well!—don't—go—old fellow. Have some more m-m-m-ore g-g-g-r-o-grog'.
Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Surgery, Education, Dissection, Anatomy, Pharmaceuticals, Class
Describes revelries at Mr Rapp's farewell feast. The lecture-room skeleton was 'placed in a classical attitude' in the banqueting room, and the base of its skull used as a 'tobacco-box, proving that medical students, in their most idle moments, never lose sight of their studies'. Notes that the 'dissections' of the meat were 'speedily carved into anatomical preparations'. One guest, Mr Mahhug, sings a song entitled 'An Assistant wanted'. The song requests a 'gentleman' for a 'country practitioner highly genteel / With a union of paupers to physic and heal'. He asks for somebody who has a wide range of medical skills including the ability to 'bleed with precision, ne'er missing a vein' and to 'draw double teeth without fracture or pain'. He must know the 'Pharmacopoeia by heart', 'ne'er seem reluctant—when sent for—to go', and 'come in the parlour to dinner and tea', but return to his surgery when the meal's over. He must also be 'well dress'd', be able to 'walk like a postman', always be 'making a draught, mixture, or pill', and be able to 'sleep in a garret, small, dreary, and chill'.(155)
Subtitled, 'A True Story, Dedicated to Thomas WakleyWakley, Thomas
(1795–1862)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, M.P.', it describes an 'odd event' at the Zoological Society GardensZoological Society of London —Gardens
CloseView the register entry >>. A man tries to feed a pine-apple to the 'great polar bear' in the gardens, but the bear, who is depicted in the illustration as a creature with Wakley's face, rejects the food as 'contemptible', an allusion to Wakley's fierce opposition to the Copyright Bill. The bear insists that the only thing on earth it really relishes is 'guts'.
A 'Specimen of a Proposed Philosophical Dictionary' proposing alternative etymologies for several common words and phrases. Entries include: 'Dust—A title originated by philosophers, in respect of its worthlessness, and perpetuated by the swell mob and the undergraduates of the two learned Universities, in respect of its pithiness'; 'Tin—Frequently acquired by brass; species pro specie; possibly from Τιυειυ, to pay'; and 'Oil of Palms—Mataphora venustissima. A specific much in vogue for rigid fingers and horny fistedness; thought, strange to say, it only serves to augment the itch that so often affects the hand. It is absorbed into the system with singular facility, but requires a tremendous squeeze to re-express it'.
Observes that the geology of the Seven Dials district of London consists of 'granite rhomboids placed closely together, the whole forming a [...] carriage way'. Its 'Natural History' consists of domestic animals, 'boxes of mignonette', 'large quantities of mustard and cress', and 'cabbage leaves [...] thickly sown in every gutter'. Its inhabitants are 'a brave and affable race, whose manners and customs are more worthy of observation than emulation'.
Describes the British MuseumBritish Museum
CloseView the register entry >> as an 'admirable building' full of 'everything curious, from an elephant's tusk to the magnified leg of a bluebottle'. Notes the museum's distinguished collection of butterflies and the fact that such species are preserved on valuable pins. Claims that between 1835 and 1840, the museum began receiving donations of 'bottled gooseberries', the enjoyment of which is the privilege of the museum's curator. (177)
[16] The Admiralty
Subjects:
Telegraphy, Government, Navigation
Describes the AdmiraltyAdmiralty
CloseView the register entry >> and observes that the telegraph pole on top of the building is 'used to stir up authorities in case of any news of importance'. Passers-by 'vainly endeavour to make head or tail of it'. Considers the telegraph's powers of communication to be 'rather limited' because it can 'only make an L, and E, and F, or a T' and has difficulty with Y's and W's. Adds that the telegraph is 'generally at work on foggy days, when of course no harm can be done by misunderstanding'. (179)
[20] Bazaars
Subjects:
Museums, Zoology, Horticulture
Describes the PantheonPantheon, Oxford Street CloseView the register entry >> as 'a conservatory of unknown plants, and evergreen shrubs, occasionally disposed of to horticulturists who are equally so'. Notes that its fountain and basin contains 'gold fish' rather than 'red herrings'. (181)
[23] Hospitals
Subjects:
Hospitals, Medical Treatment, Medical Practitioners, Mesmerism, Animal Magnetism
Describes hospitals as 'edifices' which 'have in view the provision of subjects for anatomy, the pecuniary benefit of their officers, and the trial of new remedies' upon patients. Adds that the wards afford an 'agreeable' mid-day walk for 'studious and scientific men'. Lists 'attributes' of gentlemen walking in various hospitals. Those in Guy's HospitalGuy's Hospital
CloseView the register entry >> and St Thomas's HospitalSt Thomas's Hospital
CloseView the register entry >> are prone to 'half-and-half, anatomical fracas, and billiards', while those at University College HospitalUniversity College Hospital Medical School
CloseView the register entry >> are prone to 'Conjuring, juggling, and Mesmerism'. (182)
Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Pharmaceuticals
Subtitled 'Mr. WakleyWakley, Thomas
(1795–1862)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, the Modern Orpheus', the illustration depicts Wakley as Orpheus and the text responds to Wakley's claim that 'he could mix up a poem as well as any of the regular practitioners, and licentiates in the same verse line'. His recipe consists of eight lines of Latin text including 'Zephyrorum murmur / Osculorum candent', 'Virginum lacrym / Hominum perjur'.
Describes the Geological Society'sGeological Society of London
CloseView the register entry >> inspection of 'the treasure of the dust-hole'. After this 'rich mine of geological lore' was opened up a cloud of 'ashy particles' filled the room. Exploring the contents of the hole, the president of the society found cinders, 'chiefly to be found in the neighbourhood of Mount Vesuvius' and 'a good deal of vegetable matter'. The society also discovered a piece of slate among the ashes—the result of 'an experiment of the coal-merchant [...] desirous of witnessing the combination of slate and carbon'—and a 'tertiary deposit of potato peelings'.
Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Pharmaceuticals, Gender, Mental Illness
Describes Jack Randle's attempts to treat a female patient who is suffering from a 'fit of hysterics'. Notes that he placed 'cupping glasses' on the patient's head and a tourniquet on her arm, and informed her that 'these measures would counteract the photographic circulation, caused by too much excitement of the tariff and system in general'. Describes Randle's experiences bleeding a farmer, and in response to Joseph Muff, asks whether he 'ever imagines that medical men know what etiquette meant' and insists that Muff 'cannot think what a generous, liberal-minded, open-hearted set of men they are'.
Exhibitions, Display, Machinery, Gender, Zoology, Military Technology, Instruments
Introduces two 'effusions of some highly mechanical bard who has found in the Tank at the Polytechnic another Hippocrene', an allusion to exhibits at the Royal Polytechnic InstitutionRoyal Polytechnic Institution
CloseView the register entry >>. 'The Song of the Bell, (not Schiller'sSchiller, Friedrich (Johann Chrisoph Friedrich von)
(1759–1805)
CBD CloseView the register entry >>)', which puns on the word 'belle', invites Miss Brown to dive into the large water tank at the Polytechnic in its famous 'Diving Bell'. Explains how Miss Brown can obtain more air and that she can expect to see various fish and 'pieces of the ship, / That is blown up thrice a day' in the tank. 'He Wore a Suit of Moses' describes an encounter with one of the Polytechnic's divers, who descended to the bottom of the water tank and later placed some gunpowder in a model of the HMS Royal GeorgeHMS Royal George CloseView the register entry >>, which was to be destroyed by Charles W Pasley'sPasley, Sir Charles William
(1780–1861)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> 'batteries'. The author notes how the diver later emerged from the tank and drank some beer 'behind the air-pump stand'.
Describes the features and habits of various 'insects' to be observed in London where the reported behaviour of the 'insect' typically refers to that of a certain type of Londoner who shares a name with the insect. For example, 'Sweeps' are described as all having a 'dusty brown' head and thorax and as having antennae which are either dirty white feathers or deep orange; 'Painted Ladies', numerous 'towards evening', are considered to 'fall easy prey to any one inclined to pursue them'; 'Red Admirals' are considered 'very rare' although one was seen in Portland Place; and the 'Hawk tribe' can be found 'about the young sprigs' on Epsom Downs.
Describes a meeting of the 'Practical Association of Parochial Philosophers'. Gives an absurdly technical account of how one member opened a bottle of ginger beer, and reports other members' equally technical discussions of what happened after the bottle was opened. For example, one 'gentleman' who was struck in the eye by the cork, said that it 'struck me (loud cheers) that there was a smart pain in my left organ of vision, and there was a sort of flashing sensation in the part affected, that was exceedingly interesting, and in the highest degree curious'. The meeting, which 'was kept up till late an hour' and which was sustained by consumption of liquor, also established a number of conclusions about beer drinking, including the fact that 'the force employed in the social operation, usually called "the honours" after drinking a toast, imparts a centrifugal force to a tumbler, which is sufficient to bring it in contact with a window at a distance of fourteen feet'.
Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Education, Collecting, Natural History, Botany
Considers summer courses in natural history taught at medical schools to be 'most exciting' and crucial to making a 'medical man' trustworthy. Notes that medical botanists are considered 'harmless and inoffensive maniacs' by the students, and 'would lecture to themselves and their vegetables' were it not for the few pupils they can take on botanical 'excursions'. Introduces Dr Wurzel, a professor of botany, who took some of the protagonists of the story on a botanical excursion.