| Reference number | VF/39 |
| Alternative reference number | VF39 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Portrait of Sir Samuel Wilks by Sir Leslie Ward |
| Artist | Ward, Leslie ['Spy'] |
| Vincent Brooks Day & Son |
| Date | 01 October 1892 |
| Description | Vanity Fair cartoon titled 'Philosophical Pathology' featuring Sir Samuel Wilk. Full length, right profile. Number 548 of the 'Men of the Day' series. |
| InscriptionContent | Recto inscription: 'VANITY FAIR. Octr. 1 1892/ Vincent Brooks, Day & Son Lith./
“Philosophical Pathology”’ |
| Caption | Men of the Day. No. 548.
Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.S.
Born in respectable Camberwell eight-and-sixty years ago, and respectably educated at University College, London, he is now the oldest and one of the best known of Guy's men. A diligent medical student, he has steadily improved himself from the first; and without ever being a fashionable physician - for which he is too truthful - he has successively been made a Doctor of Medicine, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Fellow of the Royal Society, Physician to Guy's Hospital and Lecturer on Medicine, President of the Pathological Society, Member of the Society of the University of London and of the General Council, Vice-President of the Royal College of Physicians, Physician to the Duke of Duchess of Connaught, and many other things; and he is still Consulting Physician to his old hospital. He is also an honorary Doctor of Laws of Edinburgh University and Censor of the College; and he has sat upon Medical and Royal Commissions. He has indeed achieved every medical honour except that of President of the Royal College of Physicians.
He is a rather rugged person, who has written and spoken much that is wise on Pathological Anatomy, on the Nervous System, on Alcoholism, and on Vivisection. He has introduced more than one new drug, and he is a devoted worshipper of Science; which is, in his belief, the mistress of Truth. He is a broad-minded, sympathetic man, who is more in agreement with Mr. Huxley than with Mr. Gladstone; and he has just completed a biographical history of Guy's Hospital. He is an upholder of the corporate system of hospitals, but he is no great believer in the modern specialist. Yet he is an abundant talker out of the fulness of the wisdom that is gained of experience; and he has done much to rid ladies of sick-headache.
He is a blue-eyed kindly-looking man, whom The Times once called "the most philosophical of English physicians." He thinks that the most wonderful thing in the world is a woman's nervous system. |
| Format | Lithograph |
| Physical description | Coloured lithograph on paper |
| Dimensions | 380mm x 263mm |
| Access status | Open |
| Copyright | The Royal Society |
| Provenance | From volume formerly owned by Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, bound as item 19, since disbound for framing |
| Related material | Alan H Sykes 'The Doctors in Vanity Fair' 1995, page 32. COlour transparency, Box N101. IM/004918 |
| Related records in the catalogue | IM/004918 |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | Name | Dates |
| NA5706 | Wilks; Sir; Samuel (1824 - 1911) | 1824 - 1911 |