Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Quackery, Homeopathy, Medical Treatment, Politics, Analogy

    Argues that 'the system of politics now dominant in Europe conforms with marvellous regularity to the "Hygeian or Morisonian System" in medicine', a reference to James Morison's quack remedies. Supports this by drawing analogies between the propositions in a hand-bill for Morison's system and features of European politics. For example, while Morison proposes that 'All diseases arise from impurity of the Blood, or, in other words, acrimonious humours lodged in the body', Punch notes that 'it is impossible to deny that "acrimonious humours"—very bad humours indeed—prevail in the body politic, everywhere to a very great extent'. Extending the analogy, desires the equivalent of the 'Vegetable Compound' which will cure the diseases of the European body politic.