print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.5894
- Title
- Object: Mercury and his advocates defeated, or vegetable intrenchment
- Description
-
A quack doctor (right) stands outside his house surrounded by a pyramid of bottles inscribed 'Velnos Syrup', one of which he holds up, demonstrating its virtues with a complacent smile to a band of rival practitioners (left) who are furiously threatening his barricade. Behind his head is inscribed : 'List of Cures \ In 1788,5,000 \ In 1789, 10,000'. The house is at the corner of 'Frith Street'; it has a porch inscribed in large letters 'Mr Swainson N. 21'. A surgeon threatens Swainson with a knife, raising also a leg to kick. A second surgeon kneels on one knee, also holding a knife and glaring ferociously; beside him is a basket of surgeon's instruments. Behind him is a man who directs an enormous syringe at the self-satisfied Swainson. An old man wearing spectacles holds up a 'Pill Box'. These assailants are dominated by a very stout man in the rear who holds up a pestle in one hand, in the other a mortar inscribed 'Mercury the only Specific'. Above his head is poised a nude Mercury holding a caduceus and urging on the attacking force. 29 November 1789
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1789
- Dimensions
-
Height: 260 millimetres (cropped)
-
Width: 370 millimetres (cropped)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)
Isaac Swainson in 1797 published 'A Series of Letters addressed to Dr. Beddoes, stripping that poisonous Mineral Mercury of its medical Pretensions'. His own specific evidently derives from Jean-Jacques-Vergely de Velnos, who published a 'Dissertation sur un nouveau remède anti-vénérien végétal'. 2de éd. Paris. 1768'. Velnos was a well-known quack remedy, cf. 'Rolliad', 2nd ed., 1785, p. 120: 'your Leakes, your Lockyers, and your Velnos.' Cf. BMSat 8112. It was reputed to produce (c. 1798) £5,000 a year for Swainson, who purchased the secret. 'Farington Diary', i. 248.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.5894
