William Pitt the younger as an obstetrician and medicine vendor, accompanied by Henry Dundas as his assistant, disputing with Napoleon Bonaparte their respective medicinal remedies for the delivery of Europe. Etching after C. Ansell (?), 1800.

  • Ansell, Charles, approximately 1752-
Date:
[1800]
Reference:
663331i
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Description

The print contrasts Pitt's use of cash to support his Austrian allies with Napoleon's use of military force. Pitt is represented both as an accoucheur or man-midwife (he has a pair of forceps labeled "Income tax" sticking out of his pocket) and as a medicine vendor ("quack doctor"). To the left, Dundas wears a Scottish bonnet and a plaid suit in the style of the harlequin costume traditionally worn by the quack-doctor's zany. Napoleon carries a sword (as the obstetrician does in the print "Doctor Forceps" by Matthias Darly, 1773) with which he points to a pile of bolus-shaped (and musket-ball-shaped) pills. On the right his assistant uses a musket to shoot a bolus down the throat of one of the Austrian generals whom Napoleon had defeated at the battle of Marengo on 14 June 1800: either General Michael von Melas or General Pál Kray, both of whom are mentioned in the lettering. The British Museum catalogue suggests the shooting man may be Napoleon's general Louis Charles Antoine Desaix (1768-1800), though he would be an unsuitable candidate as he was killed by a musket ball at Marengo

Publication/Creation

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [1800]

Physical description

1 print : etching ; platemark 18 x 22.7 cm

Lettering

The rival accoucheurs or who shall deliver Europe? Bears number top right: No. XV Pitt says: "Why I tell you Doctor Buonaparte, nothing can effect a complete deliverance but my prescription of mint seed, it is the most efficacious remedy in the world". Napoleon replies "I deny that, Doctor, my pills are far more certain in their operation & much quicker in their effect, for instance you have been 14 months in attempting to deliver Italy & I have delivered her in a day, but I refer you to Dr Melas & Dr Kray who have both tried my pills & found them irresistible. therfore Dr if you do not immediatly acknowledge the superiority of my pills, by Mahomet I will make you -". Dundas replies, "Hoot mon, I never knew a country man of mine but would prefer the mint seed to aw the republican pills in the world".

Creator/production credits

Attribution to "Ansell" from the British Museum catalogue, loc. cit.

References note

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. VI, London 1938, no. 9544A
Lisa Forman Cody, Birthing the nation: sex, science, and the conception of eighteenth-century Britons, Oxford 2005, p. 312

Reference

Wellcome Collection 663331i

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