Physicians

Business card of Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf listing his practice address in New York, New York.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-10-24

A list of many prominent doctors, surgeons, and professors who have been invited to participate in an International Hygiene Exhibition.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1910-08

President Roosevelt holds a bag labeled “Doctor Roosevelt” and speaks to Uncle Sam, who holds a mirror and is looking at the “socialism” growth on his neck. Beside him is a “Doctor Roosevelt’s Reform Remedy.” Caption: Doctor Roosevelt–We have arrested the growth on your neck nicely. All you need is to continue taking my remedy and a cure is guaranteed. Note–The socialist vote is greatly decreased in socialistic centers. A handwritten note is also included: “This looks good to all of us.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

William C. Morris was a cartoonist whose long career as a political cartoonist can be termed, at least in his portrayals and estimations of Theodore Roosevelt, as constantly changing. He seldom was neutral: his cartoons were either condemnatory or adulatory, dismissive or hagiographic. Many political cartoonists through the years have been consistent in their views, and a few evolved and advocated different philosophies or issues. The great socialist cartoonist once drew a bordello populated by journalists and cartoonists (E. W. Kemble being a certain caricature) ready to sell their gifts of persuasion to the highest bidders. Morris either had malleable convictions or was loyal to whatever publishers would employ him.

In the first cartoon, two doctors look at a sleeping President Roosevelt. Caption: Doctor–“It is a very severe case of sleeping sickness. Our remedies have no effect. Mr. Roosevelt must be aroused. But how?” In the second cartoon, the doctors have an idea. Caption: “An idea!” He might respond to a severe shock. Let’s try it!” In the third cartoon, one doctor reads a paper. Caption: “Ah, doctor! I see here an account of an African hunting trip, written by the–” In the fourth cartoon, Roosevelt starts to wake up. Caption: “Famous nature lover, Jack Liverpool. He says: ‘I was hastening over the mountains in pursuit of the savage crocodile when suddenly I beheld–‘” In the fifth cartoon, President Roosevelt has a questioning look. Caption: “A lion leap madly from the top of a tall palm tree, pursued by a frantic springbok, which was beating him terribly with her wings. The king of beasts had evidently been robbing her nest–” In the sixth cartoon, Roosevelt jumps up with a pen in his hand. The doctors shake hands, saying “Congratulations!” and “He’s cured.” Caption: Mr. Roosevelt–“Nature faker!!! I’ll show him up!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The multi-panel cartoon by Ralph Wilder in the Chicago Record-Herald was published before election day, but reflected in a comical way the public’s perception of President Roosevelt’s upcoming safari in Africa — and speculated on his own preoccupation with the trip. In passing the cartoonist also relied on the subject of Roosevelt’s crusade against “nature fakers,” writers who ascribed human emotions and abilities to animals.

Thomas S. Rollins informs William Loeb that he has mailed Richard Sylvester a statement from doctor H. Bascom Weaver regarding Laura A. Hull Morris.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-20

Business card of Abraham Per Lee Pease, part of the American Commission to Ethiopia.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908

Theodore Roosevelt, with a bag emblazoned “Dr. T.R.” speaks to the large figure of Uncle Sam while Robert M. La Follette looks on through a window. Roosevelt says to Uncle Sam, “You’re a very sick man. I’m the only one that can help you,” while La Follette protests, “Quack! That’s all!”

Comments and Context

This refers to the 1912 presidential race, where Robert M. La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt both sought the Republican nomination for president in opposition to William H. Taft on a more progressive platform. La Follette initially was the candidate of progressive Republicans because of Roosevelt’s initial refusal to run. Roosevelt’s later entry into the race, however, brought them into conflict, as many of La Follette’s supporters turned away from him to T.R.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

“Dr. Schurz” holding a large carving knife and sharpening tool, “Dr. Grace,” and “Dr. Parkhurst” holding a saw examine a sick tiger labeled “Tammany.” A medicine case in the foreground contains a drill, pincers, and a bottle of “Giant Powder – Reform Brand.” Caption: Cut him up into small pieces; – don’t let any of his nine lives get away!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-11-06

Uncle Sam sits in a hammock, holding a fan, beset by swarms of locust-like pests streaming from a “Law School,” “Medical College,” and a “Theological Institute,” each carrying a diploma. Caption: The mills are starting up again for next year’s visitation.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-09-22

President McKinley as a physician dispenses strong “Tariff” medicine in the men’s ward of a sanatorium. The beds lining the walls are occupied by a “Business Man” suffering from a “Loss of Confidence,” a “Populist” disturbed by “Mental Aberation in Regard to Free Silver and Government Paternalism,” and a “Jingoist,” a “Spoils Man,” an “Anarchist,” a “Filibuster,” a “Monopolist,” all with similarly distressing ills. Last is a man sitting on a bed with a sign that states “Hallucinations about Home Markets and Infant Industries.” In the background is a door that leads to the “Woman’s Ward,” where “Woman’s Suffrage” and “Woman’s Rights” are the diseases.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-04-14

An elderly physician sits in a chair in an office. Hanging on the wall is a fee schedule labeled, on the left, “Ailments for People of Moderate Means. Low Fees” and on the right, “Same Ailments for Rich Patients. Fees Accordingly.” For example, on the left “Colic $5.00” becomes, on the right, “Appendicitis $1000.00,” “Earache 5.00” becomes “Otitis Media 250.00,” “Indigestion 5.00” becomes “Acute Gastro-Enteretis 400.00,” and “That Tired Feeling 5.00” becomes “Neurasthenia 350.00.” A young messenger boy is delivering a message, and in the background, well-dressed patients are sitting in a waiting room. Caption: He has ordinary and inexpensive ailments for ordinary patients and high-sounding and costly maladies for the rich.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-12-22

An elderly physician holding a box labeled “Old School Drug Cure” sits with bottles of various drugs labeled “Opium, Strychnine, Calomel, Morphine, Arsenic, Poisons, [and] Squills” in front of a crowded “Chockful Cemetery.” A younger man stands in the street, holding a large book labeled “New School Mind Cure,” with a sparsely populated cemetery labeled “No drugs Cemetery” behind him.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-04-06

Puck, as the attending physician to the birth of Uncle Sam’s child, emerges from the birthing room. Caption: Uncle Sam — Well? / Dr. Puck — It’s a boy, and his name is Bill.

Comments and Context

There was a week to go before election day, and Puck cleverly dealt with the perennial (or quadrennial) intersection of the advance deadlines of weekly magazines and election-day returns. The father of cartoonist Udo J. Keppler, Puck‘s founder Joseph Keppler, drew complicated and clever compositions showing the figures representing parties shaking hands “over the bloody chasm”, hiding caricatures of several politicians within trees and jagged mountains; a Judge Magazine cartoonist once drew an elaborate election-day subject, leaving the face of the victor blank until the last minute, printing presses awaiting.

In 1908 Keppler finessed the matter by addressing the fact that there would indeed be a victor. He cast the mascot-character of Puck as the attending physician in the delivery room. And — Puckishly — apparently for the first time in the campaign, noted that the two major candidates each had the Christian name William.

Handwritten draft of Theodore Roosevelt’s speech to the American Medical Association about the spirit of service and sacrifice in the medical profession. He says that spirit is especially needed in Europe because of World War I and encourages the doctors present to serve the cause.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1917-06-07

Theodore Roosevelt speaks about the spirit of service and sacrifice in the medical profession. He says that spirit is especially needed in Europe because of World War I and encourages the doctors present to serve the cause.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1917-06-07

Eight stagecoaches stand in a procession, each jammed with passengers. Riding in the first coach, labeled “Republican Harmony Coach,” are Chester Alan Arthur, Roscoe Conkling, James Gillespie Blaine, John Alexander Logan, Ulysses S. Grant, J. D. Cameron, George William Curtis, John Sherman, John F. Miller(?) and an unidentified man. Riding in the second coach, labeled “Dem. Love Feast Coach” and “One Republican thrown in to please Mr. Dana,” are Charles A. Dana, Benjamin F. Butler, Edward Cooper, Rutherford B. Hayes, Franklin Edson, Samuel J. Tilden, John Kelly, and Hubert O. Thompson. Riding in the third coach, labeled “Heavy Hack,” are Cardinal John McCloskey, Robert Green Ingersoll, “Jacobs, Potter, Storrs,” Howard Crosby, Henry Ward Beecher, and Theodore Tilton. Riding in the fourth coach, labeled “Monopoly,” are William H. Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, Cyrus W. Field, Jay Gould, and a box labeled Henry Clay. Riding in the fifth coach, labeled “Thespis,” are Lester Wallack, Rose Coghlan, Marie Geistinger, “T.P., J.E. Pearson, Levy,” Dion Boucicault, Edward Harrigan, and Tony Hart. The sixth coach is labeled “Homeopathy”; the seventh coach is labeled “Allopathy”; and the eighth coach is labeled “The Bruiser.” The horses pulling this last coach wear boxing gloves. Caption: [If this takes, we will have another one next year.]

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-06-13

A woman appeals to a man holding a cane labeled “Allopath” and topped with a skull who has turned his back on a sick child lying in a bed. On the far side of the bed is another man with papers labeled “Homoeopath” and “Apothecary” extending from a pocket. Caption: Dr. All. O’Path – “Very sorry, madam, if your child must die; but you ought not to have called in a Homœopath first.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-06-13

Print shows a domestic scene with Benjamin F. Butler as the mother of a sick child labeled “Butler Boom” who is being examined by Puck as a physician. Various medicines labeled “Grand Reforms, Tewksbury Investigations, Big Reforms, Big Talk, Wind, [and] Friend of the Convicts” are on a table and the floor. Caption: N.C. Physician “You have almost talked the baby to death, madam; it will require great care to keep him alive until the 6th of November.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-10-31

Print shows a group of men, probably President Garfield’s physicians, exiting Francklyn Cottage where Garfield died. The men hold slips of paper that state “Self Exoneration”. Three men standing on the left hold papers that state “Private Theory, Temperance Ideas, [and] Power of Prayer”. (They may represent physicians that were dismissed when Garfield appeared to be recovering).

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1881-09-28

A man labeled “Consumer” walks with crutches labeled “Free Oil” and “Free Hides,” and is heavily wrapped with bandages labeled “Free Valerianic, Free Cerium, Free Acorns, Gambier, Fossils, Free Orange Peel, Free Spunk, Coir, Rennets, Free Aniline Salts, Ipecac, Divi-Divi, Free Manganese, Free Turtles, Rags, Plumbago, Insects, Tonquin, Teeth, Free Brazilian Pebble, Free Pulu Litmus, [and] Free Rope ends.” He has just been discharged from the “United States Congressional Clinic” where “Matron Taft” stands at the door and doctors “Sherman, Payne, Aldrich, [and] Cannon” watch from a window as they clean their medical instruments.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-08-25