Giving up the ghost, or, One too many [graphic]

"A dying man, wearing a tattered shirt, lies stretched on a miserable bed under a casement window, through which looks Death, a skeleton holding up an hour-glass and a javelin which he points menacingly at his victim. A fat doctor (left) sits asleep at the bedside (left) while an undertaker's man, with a coffin on his back, and holding a crêpe-bound mute's wand, enters from the right as if smelling out death. The doctor wears old-fashioned dress, with powdered wig, and has a huge gold-headed cane. Beside him are the words: "I purge I bleed I sweat em, Then if they Die I Lets em"."--British Museum online catalogue, description of later state