Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Vaccination, etching 1802
"Perhaps a pl. to a book. A monster symbolizes the new treatment. Its body, horns, hind-legs, and tail are cow-like. Its gaping jaws resemble those of a crocodile with tusks, its fore-feet are feline, its ears are serrated; its body is covered with running sores inscribed: 'Pestilence', 'Plague', 'Foetid Ulcers', 'Leprosy', 'Pandoras Box'. Three doctors (left), with horns and cows' tails are throwing the contents of baskets filled with tiny naked infants into the monster's avid jaws (left). From the pocket of the most prominent projects a document: '£10,00[0]', showing that he is Jenner, to whom (June 1802) a parliamentary grant of £10,000 was made. Other infants, who have acquired horns and tails, are being excreted; these a fourth horned doctor (right), one foot resting on a volume of 'Lectures on Botany', shovels into a dungcart." - image and quote from The British Museum.

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