Doctors Differ

This stipple engraving depicts physicians engaged in violent combat, their bodies contorted in exaggerated poses as they strike and grapple with one another. The print ridicules medical practitioners through physical caricature—distorted features and grotesque anatomy underscore the satire's mockery of professional disagreement and medical incompetence. The work exemplifies late-18th-century print satire, inheriting techniques from Hogarth's narrative sequences and Gillray's political invective. Through stippled tone and dynamic composition, the artist transforms abstract professional conflict into brutal slapstick. This tradition of visual mockery—combining caricature, exaggeration, and sequential action—directly prefigures the comic strip. Medical quackery was a favorite target; the chaotic scene suggests that doctors' competing theories and treatments were as harmful as outright violence.