Remedies in the XXth Century, 1773

This etching by T. Sandars after J. Collier depicts a medical procedure rendered as grotesque comedy. One figure vomits into a bowl while a companion steadies it, his wig lifted back—a scene of bodily degradation used to mock contemporary medical practice. The print exemplifies 18th-century satirical printmaking's fascination with bodily functions and quackery. Such crude, exaggerated scenes characterize the Hogarth-Gillray tradition, where human figures are distorted for social criticism. Medical satire was particularly popular; prints ridiculed doctors, apothecaries, and patients alike. These engravings reached broad audiences and established visual comedy's role in social commentary—a direct ancestor to the caricature, comic strip, and graphic satire traditions that followed.