The Wasp — 1894 — page 148: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes the irony of erecting public memorials to doctors. The dialogue reveals the joke: a well-dressed man tells a woman that the world is "very ungrateful" toward the medical profession, citing how "seldom one sees a public memorial erected to a doctor." He proposes a solution—having his son become an actor instead, since actors get memorials despite their work being ephemeral ("no danger of his becoming an actor as long as he works there"). The satire mocks medical pomposity and the profession's perceived underappreciation, while simultaneously insulting actors as less substantial than doctors. The cartoon likely reflects late-19th-century tensions between professions competing for social prestige and public recognition in San Francisco.