The physician sits at a table, left. With his left hand he holds an octavo book open on the table, while with a quill pen in his right hand he writes on a sheet of paper, using the book for reference. Other octavo books are standing on the table. Behind him stands a man holding his tricorn hat under his arm and extending his hand to receive the paper from the physician: he may be the patient, or a messenger for the patient or for the physician, waiting for the physician to write out a prescription. Against the back wall stands a cabinet, of which one bay contains a library of substantial volumes and the adjacent bay contains materia medica in the form of powders and liquids in glass vessels.