‘Poisoning the Sick at Jaffa’, 1814

Description

Mounted hand coloured etching and aquatint entitled ‘POISONING THE SICK AT JAFFA.’, drawn and etched by George Cruikshank, and published by Thomas Tegg in 1814.

This caricature is an atrocity satire, based on the story that plagued French soldiers were given opium on retreat from Acre, May 1799. The caricature depicts Napoleon and an evil-looking apothecary plotting to poison the patients in a field hospital.

Napoleon in dress uniform, with a big sword, directs the apothecary in sleeve protectors and apron, holding a bottle “opium”. The room contains a mortar and pestle on a stand, carboys and specie jars, hand scales on the wall, and a thermometer in the window. A crocodile hangs from the ceiling. Sick men in bonnets-rouges are visible in a ward past a curtain.