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Revision as of 23:12, 12 August 2022
A Consultation of Physicians, or The Company of Undertakers is a 1736 engraving by William Hogarth that satirizes the medical profession.[1][2] It depicts a coat of arms with three notorious quacks of the time ― John Taylor, Sarah Mapp, and Joshua Ward — seated at the top of the shield and twelve physicians below, implying that the quacks and the physicians are one and the same.[3] The blazon at the bottom of the print reads:
The company of undertakers beareth, sable, a urinal, proper, between twelve quack-heads of the second, and twelve cane-heads, or consultant. On a chief, nebulae, ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, checkie, sustaining, in his right hand, a baton of the second. On his dexter and sinister sides two demi-doctors, issuant, of the second, and two cane-heads, issuant of the third; the first having one eye, couchant, towards the dexter side of the escutcheon; the second, faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant. With this motto—Et plurima mortis imago.[4]
Taylor, seated at the top left, is winking and holds a cane bearing an open eye, a reference to his dubious ocular surgeries. The bonesetter Mapp holds a large bone in her hand, and Ward, a pharmaceutical charlatan, is depicted with a half-red (gules) face, resembling the man's distinctive port-wine birthmark.[5] A physician in the bottom right holds a urine flask, likely referencing the practice of uroscopy.[6] The other physicians examine the flask closely, holding perfumed canes to their noses to cover up the smell — perhaps of death.[3][7] The motto translates to "And many are the faces of death"[3] or "Everywhere the image of death".[8] The doctors' canes resemble the batons held by undertakers at funerals,[9] and death is symbolized by the black (sable) background and the crossed bones at the bottom of the crest.[2][4] The language of "quack-heads" and "cane-heads" equates the intellect of the quacks to that of their canes.[10]
References
- ^ "The Company of Undertakers". Royal Academy. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
- ^ a b Geraghty, K. (2001). "The Company of Undertakers: Satire and the Medical Profession". AMA Journal of Ethics. 3 (4): 117–118. doi:10.1001/virtualmentor.2001.3.4.mhst1-0104.
- ^ a b c "A Consultation of Physicians, or The Company of Undertakers". Philadelphia Museum of Art. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
- ^ a b Hogarth n.d., pp. 225–6.
- ^ Haslam 1996, pp. 56–61.
- ^ Haslam 1996, p. 79.
- ^ Shesgreen 1973, plate 40.
- ^ Haslam 1996, p. 55.
- ^ Haslam 1996, p. 54.
- ^ Gwyn, N.B. (1940). "An interpretation of the Hogarth print "The Arms of the Company of Undertakers"". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 8 (1): 115–27.
Works cited
- Haslam, F. (1996). From Hogarth to Rowlandson: Medicine in Art in Eighteenth-century Britain. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-630-5.
- Hogarth, W. (n.d.). The works of William Hogarth, moralized. London: J. Goodwin.
- Shesgreen, Sean (1973). Engravings by Hogarth. Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-22479-4.
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