
https://thinkingispower.com/why-trying- ... ing-right/
The "positive extreme of the scene" is located in the right part of the painting. In the background, an allegorical depiction of Homeopathy soars in the clouds. In front of her is the god of medicine Aesculapius in a red cloak, his left hand raised in anger and indignation. Behind him is the goddess Athena, who protects the sciences. At the right edge of the canvas is the German physician Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy. All of them look with disapproval and indignation at those associated with allopathy (modern medicine) in the "negative extreme", located on the left side of the painting, where doctors mistreat a patient. One doctor saws off the leg of a patient while the patient's wife and children sob in the lower left corner, the figure of Death waiting in the doorway.[5]
The picture reflects the status homeopathy had in the nineteenth century, when it claimed to be more scientific than the extremely dogmatic "heroic medicine" of the period, which frequently did more harm than good, whereas, in the words of Ben Goldacre, homeopathy "at least did nothing either way".[6] Accordingly, the painting depicts conventional medicine as rogues and charlatans.