Early Modern (1450 CE - 1800 CE)
The Death of Robespierre
This engraving, based on a color portrait by Beys, depicts the death of Robespierre on the guillotine. The executioners wear not the traditional hangman’s hood but red bonnets representing liberty. This judgment notes Robespierre’s failure to the Revolution itself.
Carrying Native-American Babies
This watercolor (fig. 1) of a mother carrying her baby was painted c. 1585 by John White who explored the mid-Atlantic region with other Englishmen including Thomas Hariot.
Devshirme System
This Ottoman miniature painting from 1558 shows a group of boys dressed in red, being registered for the devshirme (usually translated as “child levy” or “blood tax”).
Disciplining Children in the Codex Mendoza
Aztec children were valued creations. Language used in rituals compared infants to precious stones and feathers, flakes of stone, ornaments, or sprouts of plants.
Birth Rituals in the Codex Mendoza
The image from the Codex Mendoza (produced ca. 1535-1550) describes the Aztec birth ritual of bathing and naming the child, which, according to accounts from the 16th century, was usually held on the fourth day after birth.
Aztec Cradleboard Figurine and Drawing
The ceramic figurine of an infant in a cradle (also called a cradleboard) was created by the Nahua, or Aztec people of Mexico, between 1350 and 1521 CE.
Rubeola Vulgaris - Measles
Robert Willan (1757-1812) was a physician who practiced in London. Like Sydenham he was fascinated by the relation of weather to epidemics and kept strict records on when they occurred over several years.
Transplanting Teeth
This print is by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and is dated 1787. It is a satirical comment upon the real practice of rich gentlemen and ladies of the 18th century paying for teeth to be pulled from poor children and transplanted in their gums. The dentist present is portrayed as a quack.
Emile
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote the philosophical treatise Emile, or On Education in 1762. In it, he imagines a situation in which a young tutor devotes 20 years to raising a single child.
The Days of 31 May and 1-2 June 1793
Even though popular action had unseated the Legislative Assembly and replaced it with the Convention, the elections that followed had not satisfied the radicals of Paris and their artisanal followers.