Chap. VIII: Comment Docteur! (What, Doctor?) 1824

Victor Adam created this lithograph, "Chap. VIII: Comment Docteur!," capturing a scene laden with potent symbols of health and mortality. Observe the doctor's probing gesture, a stark reminder of our fragility. In the background, we find the skull—a memento mori—an ancient symbol urging us to remember our inevitable end. This symbol transcends cultures, appearing in Roman sarcophagi and Renaissance vanitas paintings. The doctor’s tools hint at attempts to control life's unpredictable course. His confident posture clashes with the patient’s anxious one, capturing the eternal struggle against disease and death. Such scenes tap into our collective anxieties, revealing the universal human experience with health, illness, and fear. This image, like others across time, is a poignant contemplation on mortality, continually resurfacing in art to remind us of our shared fate.