A physician, lying ill in bed, laughs at the antics of a monkey which is trying on his doctoral bonnet, and is cured by his own laughter. Coloured etching by R. Cruikshank, 1819.

The subject is the second of two stories ascribed to Laurent Joubert: "A patient being very low, the physician, who had ordered a dose of rhubarb, countermanded the medicine, which was left on the table. A monkey in the room, jumping up, discovered the goblet, and having tasted, made a terrible grimace. Again putting only his tongue, he perceived some sweetness of the dissolved manna, while the rhubarb had sunked to the bottom. Thus emboldened, he swallowed the whole, but found it such a nauseous potion that after many strange and fantastic grimaces, he grinded his teeth in agony, and in a violent fury threw the goblet on the floor. The whole effect was so ludicrous, that the sick man burst into repeated peals of laughter, andf the recovery of cheerfulness led to that of health. A similar accident of an ape occurred in Joubert's own town of Montpelier. A foreign physician being supposed at the point of death, the first care of his servants was to seize his spoils. The ape, faithful to his character of imitation, could find nothing except his master's bonnet of ceremony, red velvet lined with fur. In this new attire he assumed such airs, and such admiration of his own importance in life, that the repeated laughter of his master removed an obstruction of the spleen, the only cause of his malady." ( Lessons of thrift, op. cit., p. 33)

The setting is supposed to be Montpellier, but Cruikshank shows an English Regency interior. Numerous medicine bottles and bowls of gruel are on the bedside table and the mantlepiece

London (Ludgate Hill) : Published by Thomas Boys, Dec. 1, 1819.

1 print : aquatint, with etching and watercolour ; platemark 12 x 18.5 cm

The physician. Designed and etched by J.R. Cruikshank Bears page no.: page 33

Not found in: British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, London 1949, vol. X

Wellcome Collection 2489350i