A fashionable dentist is extracting the teeth of the poor in order to insert 'live teeth' immediately into the jaws of his patients. In the centre a young chimney-sweep sits in an arm-chair, over the back of which the dentist leans, holding the boy's head, and inserting an instrument into his mouth. Next (left) a lady sits in a similar chair watching the sweep with a pained and angry expression; she holds a smelling-bottle to her nose; she has just endured an extraction and is about to receive a transplantation. On the right a good-looking young lady leans back, her fists clenched in pain, while a spectacled dentist peers closely into her face, placing his instrument in her mouth. Behind her a lean, ugly, and elderly man wearing regimentals stands in profile to the right, holding a mirror in which he inspects his mouth with a dissatisfied expression. On the left a ragged boy and girl are leaving the room, both crying with pain: the girl inspects the coin in her hand. On the door is a placard: 'Most Money Given for live Teeth'. A placard on the wall is  headed by a coronet and two ducks, indicating quackery: 'Baron Ron------Dentist to her High Mightiness the Empress of Russia'. Cf. BMSat 6760.  1790
<br>Hand-coloured etching
<div class="fn value">
<p>Print made by: Thomas Rowlandson
</p>
<dl><dd>Published by: William Holland</dd></dl></div>
1787<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1787-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1892-0714-449">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1892-0714-449</a>