[Bodies scorned: when medicine and caricature meet]

With the advent of the illustrated press, in 1840, the art of caricature initiated an interesting dialogue with historical painting and portraiture. The article shows dr. Oswaldo Cruz as target of this humorous language in the early twentieth century. Caricature -- a line that cries out -- recognizes the pain of its injured subject and, under an unwritten intersubjective pact, uses humor to release the violence of suffered aggression.