Danse macabre

As the Doctor-Senator War comes to an end,
The Asian contagion is carousing merrily.
“Female and male bacilli, let’s get dancing!
Rise up, comma-bacilli, Dr. Oláh* urges them!
Good Cholera Morbus is no longer an orphan!”
Crazy Danse Macabre runs the length of the capital,
Oláh is already skipping out, leaving the Wallachians** there.
What has been decreed remains on paper.
Doing whatever they do, they reason wisely:
“The pest will disappear, they’re sheep if they run out!”
(*Presumably Gyula Oláh, physician, public health figure, and former parliamentarian)
(**Punning on Oláh’s name, which could also mean a derogatory term for Romanians.)
(Bolond Istók, Budapest, 1886)