Brisk-Cathartic

This is the third of five related prints based on sketches by Gillray's friend and amateur caricaturist, the Reverend John Sneyd. They include:

All of them, as the British Museum commentary notes elsewhere, can be described as comedies of expression where the humor resides in the apt but unwitting display in face and figure of less-than-heroic feeling.

For more information and the larger context of the series as a whole, begin with Taking Physick.

As discussed in my commentary on Gentle Emetic, much of 18th century medicine was based on ancient humor theory that posited four basic bodily humors—blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile—which needed to be kept in balance in order to maintain wellness. An excess of one humor or another would require that excess to be expelled from the body to reestablish proper balance and regain health. An emetic would empty the stomach to achieve that goal. A cathartic would empty one's bowels for the same end.

Brisk-Cathartic

Brisk-Cathartic [January 28, 1804]
© Trustees of the British Museum

So in a Brisk Cathartic, we see our familiar patient with his red night cap yellow waistcoat, blue breeches, and red slippers bundled up in a cold outhouse as the cathartic has its disconcerting and explosive laxative effect. His left hand grips his stomach as it heaves uncontrollably. We can guess that his under-drawers and stockings are hanging to dry in front of him because he didn't make it to the outhouse soon enough in a previous sprint to the WC.

NEXT: Breathing a Vein

Sources and Reading

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