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. He was particularly interested in the… [more]

The English lawyer John Evelyn (1620-1706) kept a diary for nearly 50 years and in it recorded his grief at the death of four of his children. John and Mary Evelyn had eight children altogether: Richard (1652–8), John Standsfield (1653–4), John… [more]

During the great outbreak of bubonic plague or black death in the hot summer of 1665 in London, special bills of mortality were issued that listed causes of death. By mid-July over a thousand deaths a week were reported on handbills that were stuck… [more]

This is one of the best-known prints by the famous artist, William Hogarth. He designed it to support the British government's attempt to regulate the price and popularity of drinking gin (known as Geneva) in the Gin Act of 1751. The print is… [more]

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was the wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey. In 1715 she had survived but been terribly scarred by smallpox while her brother had died from the disease. She was fascinated by the culture of the Ottoman… [more]

There are many fevers listed as the cause of death in early modern England that do not translate well into modern diseases (worm, spotted, pining, nervous) but scarlet fever is still with us. The Puritan Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) is often… [more]

Phaer was a lawyer and a physician who wrote the first work in English devoted solely to the health of children. It was first published in 1544 and went through many editions. The audience for the book according to Phaer was everyone who cared about… [more]

Born in present-day Ghana, young Ottobah Cugoano was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the young age of 13. Cugoano worked in the sugar fields of a Grenadan plantation until 1773. That year, Cugoano traveled to England with his owner where he… [more]

This excerpt is of a request made by Playden Onely to the members of the Royal African Company in 1721 for 130 children to be taken from West Africa to the West Indies for sale as slaves. The RAC commissioned the slave ship Kent for the task, and… [more]

The Dolben's Act of 1788 was proposed by noted abolitionist Sir William Dolben before the English Parliament. While it was meant to restrict the slave trade, it actually had an adverse effect on children. The act mandated that no more than two fifths… [more]