Doctor Botherum, an itinerant medicine vendor (perhaps based on Doctor Bossy) selling his wares on stage with the aid of assistants to a raucous crowd

Doctor Botherum, an itinerant medicine vendor (perhaps based on Doctor Bossy) selling his wares on stage with the aid of assistants to a raucous crowd

1 print : etching and aquatint, with watercolour

Lettering continues: "High oe'r the gaping crowd, on market day. While Andrew drolls the blockheads pence away, see the bold rogue pretending to restore, loves long lost fountain, that must flow no more. To heal wounds, or ease the raging gum, and [cure] all ills - past, present and to come. With balm Hippocrates had neir in use, powder of post commix'd, with fat of goose. Thus melts the coin obtain'd by labours rules. That cunning knaves may thrive and laugh at fools thus bashless impudence provokes to give, while modest merit means the means to live."

Coloured etching by T. Rowlandson, 1800

Wellcome Collection\
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pga6a4sw

[London?] : [publisher not identified], 6 March 1800]

J. Grego, Rowlandson the caricaturist, London 1880, vol. 2, pp. 3-5 (detailed description of the scene)