When the germ metaphor becomes prevalent enough to turn it to new ends: “Official statistics indicate that in the United States more children will soon die from automobiles than from measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough together!” Below: “Macroscopic image of the dangerous pathogens of a new plague called benzinitis that seems to have grown into a hostage of humanity.”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1930)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 