- The Village Doctor or Blacksmith turned Tooth Drawer
- HC.J.16.X.38
- Artist Unknown (originator), Bowles and Carver (agent)
- The Village Doctor or Blacksmith turned Tooth Drawer. Late eighteenth century. Coloured mezzotint. The scene is the interior of an XVIIIth century smithy. The blacksmith is extracting, with outsize forceps of his own construction, a maxillary central incisor tooth for an elderly woman who clutches his turban with one hand and squeezes her hat with the other. Her husband watches with apprehension and disapproval. The legend reads: Why dame how you hollow! and hold my horn, I never heard such a noise since I was born. How you pinch up your hat, and squeeze up your eyes, You've broke both the drums of my ears with your cries. That I hurt you, you ne'er shal make me believe, It's easy as drawing a pin from one's sleeve; I challenge the country for drawing you fool, I've drawn teeth with prongs like a three-legged stool. No doubt on't quoth Gaffer, and lifts up his hand, Yet half of an hour is a great while to stand; And th' you're surprised to hear my Dame bawl, Yet thrice round the Shop is a pretty good hawl. Printed for, and sold by, Bowles & Carver, 69 St Paul's Church Yard.
- Eighteenth century, late
Height: Framed 39 cm
