wife by extending his arm and resting his hand on her shoulder. She appears to be crying and possibly praying. He, however, is also helpless and peers on at the doctor and child. Lighting and room The artificial light from the lamp on the table and the natural rising sunlight beginning to shine through the single window suggest that the doctor has been in attendance all night. A distressed, poor, and modest family is depicted by one small carpet and the washing suspended in a small room. Two mismatched chairs, pressed together, construct a makeshift bed in the labourer's cottage. A couple of scrunched up papers lie on the floor, "most probably a filled prescription" which has been frustratingly discarded. An easily missed medicine bottle is placed in the shadow of the lamp and in close proximity to the doctor and his control, not the parents'. Accuracy Fildes stated that his choice of subject was "to put on record the status of the doctor in our own time", but his depiction of 19th-century healthcare is not entirely accurate. There is no stethoscope, microscope, sphygmomanometer, or thermometer in the picture, well-known instruments of physicians in the late 19th century which saved time. It may be that these instruments were omitted in order to show the doctors' "professional and personal commitment". Fildes does include a pestle and mortar, and a cup and a spoon, equipment used before the scientific era of medicine. It has also been pointed out that it was unlikely that a Victorian physician would make an overnight home visit to a poor family, such services being available only to the middle class and the wealthy. Reception and legacy The painting caught the public's attention and toured Britain. Received with a striking admiration, there is one report of an observer who, overwhelmed at the painting, died on the spot. The work is considered one of the most famous depictions of the practice of medicine and has been described as "iconic". It epitomises an idyllic kind of medicine and has often been used to illustrate the virtues of a good doctor and the inadequacies of the medical profession. Subsequently, the painting received comments including this by surgeon W. Mitchell Banks: "What do we not owe to Mr. Fildes for showing to the world the typical doctor as we would all like him to be shown – an honest man and a