Le ver solitaire (The Solitary Worm)

This hand-colored lithograph by Langlumé depicts a medical scenario turned comic spectacle: the extraction of a parasitic tapeworm from an emaciated patient. A woman in pink orchestrates the procedure in an apothecary shop while attendants and onlookers register shock and disgust. The scene satirizes both medical quackery and bodily horror—popular subjects in early 19th-century satirical prints. Derived from the tradition of Hogarth and Gillray, such images combined social commentary with grotesque imagery, entertaining while mocking incompetent practitioners and credulous patients. The colored lithograph process allowed vivid reproduction and wide circulation, establishing visual humor as a commercial medium that would evolve into illustrated periodicals and eventually the modern comic form.