concept

Oversize ephemera : Medical songs 3.

Three despairing women, one of whom looks disapprovingly at three quack medicine vendors concocting a mixture; representing Britain's economic depletion and distress at the hands of her politicians. Etching by W. Heath, 1830.

A well groomed itinerant medicine vendor selling his wares from a smart carriage. Steel engraving by K. Schüler (?) after F. Piloty.

Patients consulting an obese quack. Watercolour painting by T. Rowlandson, 1807.

A quack doctor offering a gouty John Bull some medicine while conventional doctors are turned away; referring to British politics. Coloured lithograph attributed to J. Doyle.

A salesman in Rome with a snake selling amulets as antidotes or prophylactics against snake-bite to a crowd of people. Etching by B. Pinelli, 1821.

An itinerant vendor advertising his 'sales show' in a square of town. Wood engraving after F. Gilbert.

John Bull as the patient of promotors of competing therapies; representing British parliamentary reform. Aquatint by S. de Wilde, 1809.

An itinerant medicine vendor and his assistants being pelted off stage with stones from an angry audience. Engraving by C.F. Stoelzel, 1798, after J. Schenau.

People strolling and buying plague antidotes in old St Paul's Cathedral, London. Etching by J. Franklin.

Il medico saltimbanco : vita e avventure di Buonafede Vitali, giramondo instancabile, chimico di talento, istrione di buona creanza / Giorgio Cosmacini.

Medicina magica tamen physica: = magical, but natural physick. Or A methodical tractate of diastatical physick. : Containing the general cures of all infirmities: and of the most radical, fixed, and malignant diseases belonging, not only to the body of man, but to all other animal and domestick creatures whatsoever, and that by way of transplantation. With a description of a most excellent cordial out of gold, much to be estimated. / Published by Samuel Boulton, Salop.

An itinerant medicine vendor selling his wares on stage to an audience while his assistant draws a tooth from a man. Etching by Diebiey, 1767.

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Quacks and quackery

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An itinerant medicine vendor and his assistants being pelted off stage with stones from an angry audience. Engraving by C.F. Stoelzel, 1798, after J. Schenau.

People strolling and buying plague antidotes in old St Paul's Cathedral, London. Etching by J. Franklin.

Il medico saltimbanco : vita e avventure di Buonafede Vitali, giramondo instancabile, chimico di talento, istrione di buona creanza / Giorgio Cosmacini.

An itinerant medicine vendor selling his wares on stage to an audience while his assistant draws a tooth from a man. Etching by Diebiey, 1767.