 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'.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.