This 1802 cartoon by English caricaturist James Gillray (1756–1815) is a striking reminder that the controversy surrounding vaccination is nothing new. Indeed, it is as old as the earliest days of the procedure itself.
British physician Edward Jenner (1749–1823) was the first to develop an effective smallpox vaccine —using a related cowpox virus as the inoculant. Soon thereafter, fear of the unknown continued despite the vaccine’s success in preventing transmission. Gillray’s 1802 cartoon depicts a startled crowd of vaccinees who have seemingly morphed into a cow-human chimera, with the front ends of cattle leaping out of their mouths, eyes, ears, and behinds 😊.
Credit: The Trustees of the British Museum
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/146958001
Tags: vintage history Bioknowlogy old classic trending funny
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Title:A goat-headed man caresses a sleeping ewe-headed woman; sati
Description:A goat-headed man caresses a sleeping ewe-headed woman; satirizing the notion of animal magnetism and its application by physicians.
Etching after M. Voltz (?), 1815.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_goat-headed_man_caresse...
Tags: vintage history Bioknowlogy cartoons comics trending ephemera
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philamuseum.org/collection/object/83810
Doctor
c. 1880
Artist/maker unknown, American
Doctor
c. 1880
Artist/maker unknown, American
Credit Line:The William H. Helfand Collection, 1988
Accession Number:1988-102-5
Geography:Made in United States, North and Central America
Tags: vintage ephemera history cartoon humor funny comics cartoons caricatures humorous science STEM medicine dentistry chemistry biology
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wellcomecollection.org/works/jvyegbqb
A shaving machine powered by steam. Coloured etching by R. Seymour.
Publication/Creation
[London] (Chancery Lane) : E. King
Contributors
•Seymour, Robert, 1798-1836.
Lettering
Shaving by steam ; Explanation. AAA a circular form on which the shaving powder, through which the water is forced to forme a lather in the brush ... shavees sit BBBBB wheels that govern the position of the head CC the machinery which moves the brush in every required direction. D a reservoir of water boiling hot E a pipe filld with patent double compress'd shaving powder ... Shortshanks fecit Extensive lettering
Reference
Wellcome Collection 30953i
Creator/production credits
Shortshanks was the pseudonym of Robert Seymour
Tags: steam engine humour Bioknowlogy shaving funny humor science STEM engineering vintage history
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www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/391758
A Sphere, Projecting Against a Plane
James Gillray British (1756–1815)
Publisher Hannah Humphrey British
January 3, 1792
Gillray cast two well-known public figures as geometrical opposites in this potent image, a prime example of exaggeration and contrast as sources of visual humor. William Pitt (1759–1806), who twice served as Britain's head of government (1783–1801, 1804–6), was a tall, thin, frugal workaholic. The Honorable Albinia Hobart (1737/8–1816), later Countess of Buckinghamshire, was heavily obese, a gifted amateur thespian, an avid gambler, and an enthusiastic supporter of Pitt's chief political rival, Charles James Fox. Gillray often caricatured each of them, but he generally placed Pitt in political situations and Mrs. Hobart in social ones. Here, he brought them together in an abstracted space with physiques exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Pitt stands in profile to represent a plane, while Mrs. Hobart's contours have been dissolved to form a sphere. No longer able to walk, she must be conveyed on a trolley, since rolling would be indelicate. Gillray emphasized the mathematical foundation of the joke by placing a Euclidian definition below.
For more about the lives of these two figures, please see here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pitt_the_Younger
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinia_Hobart
For more information about the caricaturist, please visit:
www.james-gillray.org/
Tags: vintage ephemera history caricatures vintage cartoons vintage caricatures James Gillray Gillray satire humor STEM science
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