A maid shows an old man his smallpocked face in a hand mirror. Coloured lithograph by Langlumé, 1823.

In the book, text accompanies the picture. It begins by discussing the often severe disfigurement that comes with smallpox and then describes the story of the man we see here, a bourgeois who catches it while in Luxembourg, where there is a major scare. The doctor is called and arrives four days later - too late for our man. His cook shows him his "écumoir" (pock-marked face) in the mirror. A nurse leads the children away from the scene of contagion