Hoo-Loo-Choo, alias, John Bull and the doctors [graphic]

"John Bull as a Chinese, in Chinese costume, hugely corpulent sits full-face in an arm-chair, legs extended, hands resting on the sides of his paunch. He looks to three doctors on the left, the foremost being Grey, who leans towards him, pointing to his colleagues (left), and saying suavely, 'This deformity is quite inconsistent, believe me, with the Nature of your Constitution & therefore must be got rid of, I will undertake with your approbation, to remove it & my assistant Doctor Russell here will prepare you for the Operation'. Lord John Russell, on the extreme left, speaks confidentially to Althorp who is in back view: 'I once thought that a case of this description ought to be treated with great caution and even wrote as well as talked a great deal about it, but now I am quite of a different opinion I think there is nothing like cutting away thro' thick & thin!' J. B.: 'I ca'nt say that my bodily health was ever better, or that I ever felt stronger tho' to be sure I am not growing younger; but then every one is telling me how deformed I am grown of late & this tumour which I have had from my infancy is all a Mass of Corruption'. On the right and slightly farther from the picture-plane, the rival doctors, Peel and Wellington, are in consultation. The Duke: 'I say the Man has no defect in his Constitution & that what they call corruption is necessary to his existance--but now because he would not believe me, but choses rather to submit to the experiments of these rash operators --Wharnecliffe who is a sensible Man lays all the blame on me'. Peel: 'Yet I begin to think we could have done better, when we found him determined to think that his Constitution was impaired, to have tried--just in the way of soothing, a gentle alterative Course'."--British Museum online catalogue, description of a variant state