‘MUTUAL ACCUSATION’ by Henry William Bunbury, 1774

Description

Hand coloured etching entitled ‘MUTUAL ACCUSATION’. Designed by Henry William Bunbury, engraved and published by James Bretherton in 1774.

During this period manufacturers would frequently claim that only their medicine was genuine, and that other similar preparations were an inferior ‘quack’ copy.
In ‘Mutual Accusation’ both quacks are rival manufacturers of antiscorbutic pills, with shops opposite one another. The shop sign on the left is lettered, “DR WALKERS VERITABLE ANTISCORBUTIC PILLS. Beware of impostors”, the sign on right, “TRUE antiscorbutic PILLS”.
The rival quacks, their wives, and their dogs and cats each fight one another in the street between their two competing premises.