From the ‘gin craze’ in the 1700s to minimum unit pricing in 2014, the Royal College of Physician’s latest exhibition explores the history of alcohol and the role the institution and its fellows have played over centuries of debate on the pleasures and pitfalls of wine, beer and spirits.

The exhibition draws together fascinating collections of art, objects, photographs, ephemera and volumes from the RCP’s rare book collections, tracing the strange and occasionally deadly medicinal use and consumption of alcohol though the ages. The work of doctors, artists and campaigners illustrates the central role of alcohol in our society, whilst touching on the dark side of ‘this bewitching poison…’.

Objects on display include:

  • A recipe book for the 17th century householder, including ‘an excellent drink against the plague’ whose ingredients include rue, sage and two pints of wine. Many such books hold culinary and medicinal recipes side by side, showing that there was little distinction historically between alcoholic drinks and medicines.
     
  • A beautiful 1661 ceramic cup for drinking caudle - a rich, hot drink, made from wine with cream, egg and spices, an 18th century spouted posset cup which held a spiced drink of hot curdled milk and wine, and a 19th century London workhouse pewter beer mug.
     
  • An early 17th century antimony cup, used as a purging treatment by physicians. The practice was often lethal; three people reputedly died after drinking wine from this particular cup.
     
  • In The cure of old age and preservation of youth, early English philosopher and writer on alchemy and medicine, Roger Bacon, noted that wine could: ‘preserve the stomach [and] help digestion….it also cheers the heart, tinges the countenance with red, makes the tongue voluble....if it be over-much guzzled, it will on the contrary do a great deal of harm. For it will darken the understanding... beget shaking of the limbs and blearyeyedness....and which is worse it breeds the leprosy and so imitates the nature of the serpent…’.

Artists’ responses to alcohol form a major theme of the exhibition and include works by caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank (1764–1811); himself an alcoholic who reputedly died after a drinking contest; 19th century illustrator Gustav Doré, satirists from William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank to Matt and Martin Rowson, whose 2012 ‘Priority Lane’; a contemporary parody of Hogarth’s infamous ‘Gin Lane’, will feature along with the original work.

The 2007 print series ‘O Vinho’ (wine) by acclaimed painter and printmaker Paula Rego will also be displayed. Influenced by early English satirists, the works are psychologically-­charged depictions of human dramas from a female perspective, with alcohol set centre-­stage.

Artist and filmmaker Annis Joslin has created a specially commissioned film highlighting the impact of alcohol now. ‘One too many’ features the voices of individuals with a connection to alcohol, alongside images from the RCP collections and Middlesex University Library of Historical Advertising.

The exhibition also explores contemporary research linking health problems to alcohol consumption and examines ways in which the government, the medical profession and the drinks industry are trying to tackle these problems. Of particular concern is the marketing of alcoholic drinks to young people, a problem that was predicted back in the 1970s. On display are objects associating beer with sport, such as football shirts for children advertising the team’s sponsors, one of the major beer brands. A recent study has shown how aware children are of alcohol brands and how strongly advertising influences the behaviour of young people.

Royal College of Physicians
11 St Andrews Place, Regent’s Park
London NW1 4LE United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)20 30751649
history@rcplondon.ac.uk
www.rcplondon.ac.uk

Opening hours
Monday - Friday
From 9am to 5pm

Related images

  1. Paula Rego, Just Too Much, 2007, lithograph, image courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art, London and © Paula Rego
  2. Roger Penwill, It would be terrible to have to close this place down © Roger Penwill, Cartoon Museum collection
  3. Paula Rego, Nursing, 2007, lithograph. Image Courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art, London and Copyright: Paula Rego
  4. Print II from series The Bottle by George Cruikshank, 1847, Wellcome Library, London
  5. Guinness is good for you, poster c 1925, Wellcome Library, London
  6. William Hogarth, Gin Lane, 1751, Wellcome Library, London