George Hunt after Theodore Lane.

Champaign Driving away Real Pain.

10 x 8 inches

The ditty accompanying this delightful caricature by George Hunt goes: Wine, cures the Gout, the Colic and the Phthisic. Wine it is to all men the very best of Physic. The humorous implication here is that there are very few ailments for which wine cannot afford the patient a degree of relief! Here we see three revellers afflicted with gout, colic and a rather unpleasant wasting disease, all feeling remarkably frisky by drinking copious quantities of champagne. Such are the beneficial qualities of alcohol that they appear to have totally forgotten their afflictions. A manservant pours the now redundant medicines onto the fire, chuckling to himself and causing quite a combustion. Meanwhile, in the background, a playbill is being nailed to the wall advertising various entertainments around town from the Argyll Rooms to the Haymarket.