Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Class, Heredity, Human Development, Disease, Quackery, Medical Treatment

    Speculates on the possibility that 'good birth' might cause such complaints as baldness, corns, and poor eyesight, a possibility suggested by the number of advertisements for quack medicines and restoratives that stress how popular treatments for these complaints are with the nobility. Anticipates what a 'lamentable picture' would be drawn by a 'French caricaturist' of a 'British Lord' based on these representations. Concludes by noting Lord Punch's rejection of the authenticity of this caricature, and urges that the relevant quack advertisements be stopped.