Punch,  4 (1843), 240–41.

Punch's Labours of Hercules: Chapter 4—Labour Fourth—How Hercules Destroyed a Great Boar  [4/13]

Anon

Genre:

Essay, Drollery, Serial

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

Hine, pseud.  [Henry G Hine] *

Subjects:

Medical Treatment, Medical Practitioners, Quackery, Homeopathy, Mesmerism, Phrenology, Hydropathy, Periodicals

Institutions mentioned:

Royal College of Physicians


    Describes Hercules' attempts to 'extirpate the evil' of medical quackery. Insists that in the 'old world' (a thinly-veiled reference to the present world), people indulged on 'turtle, venison, beef, mutton and vegetables' and physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, instead of telling patients what to eat and drink, were preoccupied with dispensing 'peculiar substances called medicines'. Links this to the rise of quacks who 'only have to invent some substance or compound' and who 'pay a certain sum which secured the monopoly of [the substance] to themselves, in order to go and sell it wherever'. (240) Describes how medical men complained of quackery to Hercules, who told them about the 'real nature of disease' and the 'proper principles of treatment', but who would not help them 'until they purged their own body of quackery'. Eventually Hercules attacked the 'unprincipled Legislature' which protected the quack, and 'vigorously and unsparingly' assaulted people from all classes with the 'light of reason'. Adds how Hercules attacked 'proprietors of various noted journals' until they 'ceased to be the abettors of homicidal humbug'. Describes how Hercules disposed of the quack's products by dumping them on wastelands or by turning them into manure. Just as Hercules overthrew the Centaurs (half-man, half-horse) so he expunged the 'half-rational creature and half-jackass', including homeopathists, hydropathists, mesmerists and phrenologists. Concludes by noting that Hercules' labours resulted in 'the attenuation of the Faculty' and the extinction of 'diseases and doctors'.



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