Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Surgery, Quackery, Commerce, Medical Practitioners, Status

    Analyses two advertisements—one for a gentleman assistant to a surgeon and the other for a youth to assist in surgery—that suggest that 'Medicine is evidently looking down'. Draws attention to the poor remuneration and considerable work-load required by these positions, and worries that 'if medical assistants are paid at the rate of common mechanics, and engaged to perform the services of pages and tigers, we shall soon have our prescriptions dispensed by boys broken out with buttons'.