The patient sits in an armchair in profile to the left, in the centre of a well-furnished room. He wears dressing-gown and nightcap, his arms are folded and he stares fixedly, assailed by ghostly visions which float before his eyes, emerging from smoke-like shadows: a skeleton, Death, poised just above him, raises his arrow to smite. A corpse-like half length figure offers him a pistol and a halter. A spectre with webbed wings holds out a cup.  Two staring and decapitated heads glare from the shadows which fill the room. A hand raises a sword; a man with a knife is about to be stung by a serpent. A naked body (half length) falls head downwards.  Above these spectres is a man (left) driving a hearse (right to left) at full gallop and looking round at the Hypochondriac. Behind the patient a good-looking woman speaks confidentially to a doctor who meditatively sucks his cane. He is dressed in an old-fashioned manner, wearing a tie-wig.  A table covered with medicines stands behind the patient, who seems unconscious of the other two. A money-chest beside him suggests that he is miserly. Two landscapes hang on the wall. Beneath the design is engraved: 
<p><br><br>'The Mind distemper'd - say, what potent charm, 
<br>Can Fancy's spectre - brooding rage disarm? 
<br>Physics prescriptive, art assails in vain, 
<br>The dreadful phantoms floating 'cross the brain! 
<br>Until with Esculapian skill, the sage M.D. 
<br>Finds out at length by self-taught Palmistry, 
<br>The hopeless case - in the reluctant fee: 
<br>Then, not in torture such a wretch to keep, 
<br>One pitying bolus lays him sound a sleep!'  1 March 1788.
</p>
<br>Hand-coloured etching.
<div class="fn value">
<p>Print made by: Thomas Rowlandson
</p>
<dl><dd>Published by: Thomas Rowlandson</dd></dl></div>
1788<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1788-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
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