Genre:

Essay, Drollery, Serial

Subjects:

Medical Treatment, Societies, Education, Surgery, Gender

    In his story of Minerva, Mr Punch claims that Vulcan 'officiated as surgeon, and performed craniotomy very cleverly with a hatchet' on Minerva's head. Jupiter, he adds, gave Minerva a 'patent for life-pills which enabled her to prolong human existence to any term' (130). Notes that 'the young ladies who take notes at the Royal Institution may consider themselves as her peculiar pets, as also may all geological and botanical beauties'. Ponders the claim that Minerva 'presides over mechanics' institutes, literary and scientific associations, and particularly over the Grand National Association for the Advancement of Science' (an allusion to the British Association for the Advancement of Science). (131)