A surgeon-apothecary shouts back from an open window at a request for a night-visit to a patient, sending pot plants and a cat flying. Coloured aquatint by H. Pyall after M Egerton (Ego), 1827.

The apothecary is named "Cawdle", named after caudle, a warm drink consisting of thin gruel, mixed with wine or ale, sweetened and spiced, given chiefly to sick people, esp. women in childbed (Oxford English dictionary). The suggestion that he was a general practitioner is implied by the list of available treatments on the sign post of the building: 'accoucheur & apothecary, n.b. bleeding, cupping, tooth drawing etc etc.' Left of the open window, a mortar and pestle sign alludes to the apothecary's art of mixing drugs

On the wall next to the window, a sign composed of two hands joined together, the emblem of the Hand-in-Hand Fire Office since about 1713. In 1836 it became the Hand-in-Hand Fire and Life Insurance Society: it operated its own fire brigade and made a significant contribution to fire fighting and fire prevention legislation. It insured Samuel Whitbread's first brewery in 1743 and John Wesley's Methodist chapel in 1813 (website of Aviva plc, 26 August 2004)

London (26 Haymarket) : Thos. McLean, [1827?]

1 print : aquatint, with watercolour ; platemark 32.8 x 20.5 cm

Two o'clock in the morning, rat-tat-tat.! Tingle,-tingle,-tingle!! ... Ego del.t ; H. Pyall sculp.t Lettering below title: 'Who are you? (Damn the cats!)-what d'ye want young woman, hey?-Oh-sir-master begs you'll step over di-rectly as missus,-if you please sir, is taken very bad in -a-a-a-!!!

Not found in: British Museum Catalogue of political and personal satires, London 1870-1954

Wellcome Collection 608207i