‘Medical Dispatch or Doctor Double Dose Killing Two Birds with One Stone’, 1810

Description

Mounted hand coloured etching, entitled ‘MEDICAL DISPATCH OR DOCTOR DOUBLE DOSE KILLING TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.’, designed and etched by Thomas Rowlandson, and published by Thomas Tegg in 1810.

Here a doctor is treating a dying old woman, while at the same time seducing a young woman. The old, invalid woman sits senseless in an armchair. The doctor, stout and middle-aged, with a cane labelled “MEDICAL STAFF”, takes her pulse while putting his other arm round the young woman, presumably her daughter. They gaze eagerly into each other’s eyes. On the table is a bowl of “COMPOSING DRAUGHT”, and a pillbox of “OPIUM”.