biomedicalephemera reblogged
THE COVEY WOTS GOT A KNACK OF TAKING PEOPLE OFF
Caricature of death as a gentleman, standing on a tombstone.
Image:
Illustration by satirist G.S. Tregear, ca. 1820. Now at the Wellcome Library, London.
biomedicalephemera reblogged
Caricatures of Death Personified
From a pre-Revolutionary magazine, first published in Russia in 1906. Illustrations by Boris Kustodiev.
Personifications of death included depictions of the devastating 1906 drought and ensuing famine, and the ravages of cholera, in the midst of revolutionary uprisings in Moscow.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org
"The Gout"
1799 caricature of "the disease of kings", by James Gillray. At this point in history, the cause of gout still wasn't known, and it was only known that men who drank alcohol and partook in oily fish (oily fish like sardines were not cheap!) were far more prone to suffer than anyone else.
But! The gout could strike anyone. Young, old, women, men, teetotalers, drunks...anyone. And it still can. Some people are simply unfortunate in the cards of physiology.
"Mad dog"
This 1826 cartoon depicts a "mad dog" in the London streets, attacking people. You can note the "Hydrophobia!" warning posted in the upper left-hand side of the caricature.
Rabies was definitely a thing people wanted to avoid, and was especially terrifying because they didn't understand anything useful about the virus. All they knew was if you got bit by a mad dog, you had less than a year before you went dumb or manic and then ended up dead, yourself...at least if your bite wound didn't get infected and kill you before then!