Breathing a Vein
This is the fourth of five related prints based on sketches by Gillray's friend and amateur caricaturist, the Reverend John Sneyd. They include:
- Taking Physick (February 6, 1800)
- Gentle Emetic (January 28, 1804)
- Brisk-Cathartic (January 28, 1804)
- Breathing a Vein (January 28, 1804)
- Charming Well Again (January 28, 1804)
For more information and the larger context of the series as a whole, begin with Taking Physick.
One of the most common (and to 21st century sensibilities) barbaric treatments in 18th medicine was the practice of therapeutic bloodletting or venesection. As shown in Gillray's print, the blood was usually drawn from a major vein in the neck or forearm and caught in a cup. Patients were often bled until they fainted. And it was not uncommon for the procedure to be repeated several times over the course of treatment if the patient did not improve.
© Trustees of the British Museum
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According to a British medical text quoted in Wikipedia, bloodletting was recommended as a preferred treatment for "acne, asthma, cancer, cholera, coma, convulsions, diabetes, epilepsy, gangrene, gout, herpes, indigestion, insanity, jaundice, leprosy, opthalmia, plague, pmeumonia, scurvy, smallpox, stroke, tetanus, and tuberculosis", in other words, ailments from A to Z.
The patient here is the same one we see in all five prints. The doctor is identical to the one we see in Gentle Emetic. But as the British Museum commentary notes, in this print we can see from his spurred boots that the doctor is probably a country physician as one would expect from a sketch provided by the country Rector of Elford, John Sneyd.
And once again, the expressions are key to whatever humor can be found in the situation. The patient is horrified and cannot bear to look at what is being done to him. The doctor is focused upon the reaction of the patient, concerned, but no doubt also looking for tell-tale signs of syncope (fainting).
NEXT: Charming Well Again
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on Breathing a Vein.
- "Humourism," Wikipedia
- "Heroic medicine," Wikipedia
- "English Caricature: Heroic Medicine–Bloodletting, Emetics, and Laxatives,"
- "Bloodletting," Wikipedia 'Very Ill!' The Many Faces of Medical Caricature in Nineteenth-Century England & France
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #483.
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