"Heads of the People" was published in 1840 as a two-volume set, edited by Douglas Jerrold, who also contributed several chapters. This volume contains extracts from that work. A number of the contributors, including Jerrold, were liberal or radical journalists who went on to write for Punch, which was established in the following year. The aim was to entertain the reader, but the authors also claimed a "moral seriousness of purpose" in portraying the many faces of the English, with their faults as well as their virtues. Volume III engages the reader with characterizations of the apothecary, the fashionable physician, the medical student, the monthly nurse, and the quack doctor.