At the doctor

“Please, doctor, I would like you to inoculate me with [attenuated] smallpox, because I am afraid of getting the real thing. But I wouldn’t want to disfigure my shoulders [with a vaccination scar], especially since I often have to show décolletage. So can’t I be inoculated for smallpox on my leg? After all, it is all the same thing…”
“Yes, it’s all the same for the smallpox, but not for the doctor…”
(Goniec i iskra, Lwów, 1891)

Polish smallpox cartoon

And a similar cartoon some years later:
“Dear doctor, I am so afraid of smallpox, but will it be visible when you inoculate on my calf?”
“It only depends on you!”
(Kolce, Warsaw, 1908)

Polish smallpox cartoon

In the same sexist vein, a Hungarian cartoon:
Effective argument
“I didn’t bring the medical certificate, but here is the location for the flu vaccination…”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1974)

Hungarian flu cartoon

Or another twist:
Alibi ju jour
“This is silly, hickeys like that! What am I going to tell Ernest?”
“That your vaccines have taken very well, by Jove!”
(Le Rire, Paris, 1907) (Another French cartoon with related themes. And another from 1920.)

French vaccine cartoon

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