Doctor: “Are those relatives of the patient?”
“No, those are neighbors: they found out that the patient has a terrible fever and came to warm up around him.”
(Bich, Paris, 1920) (Compare a similar German cartoon from 1847 in Fliegende Blätter)
Der neue Tag in Vienna printed a cartoon with a similar theme in 1919, apparently reprinted from a French source:
Title: “You have to know how to help yourself”
“Just stick close to Grandpa. He has the fever. Perhaps you’ll get warm near him.”
The orders they gave us are these: try to arrest the epidemic and lock it up in the clink.
(Charivari, Lisbon, 1890) (Shaky on the idiom; correction welcome.)
(Vikingen, Oslo, 1865)
After inspecting Miss Stabell’s farm on Rohdeløkken and thus suiting Morgenbladet [the establishment newspaper], the Public Health Commission sleeps the sleep of the righteous in its armchair without having any idea that cholera is killing thousands of pilgrims in Egypt.
The Public Health Commission suddenly wakes up and discovers to its dismay that Cholera is fast approaching.
The Public Health Commission immediately hurries to sweep Oslo’s gutters and “cut a broad swathe.”
Whereupon the Public Health Commission goes back to sleeping the sleep of the righteous, while Cholera…
War and cholera
(Vikingen, Oslo, 1866)
Cholera has finally arrived in Oslo, received by a deputation from the country’s health commissions.
(Vikingen, Oslo, 1866)
How is it that a cholera doctor can feel fine while patients aren’t.
(Vikingen, Oslo, 1866)
At the Karl-Johan Gate (in central Oslo) (man spreading slaked lime)
On the banks of the Akerselven River (running through Oslo)
(Vikingen, Oslo, 1892)
Since Maura gives us that veal, we will have to increase the vaccine with faith to combat Catalan smallpox…
(Gedeón, Madrid, 1909) (Correction welcome!)
“Hey, gorgeous, are you vaccinated?”
“And what do you care?”
“I’m just warning you that there is a crazy lot of smallpox out there.”
“So what?”
“Come on, take a shot… you should come with me.”
(Madrid cómico, 1896) (shaky with the idiom here)
Sarrasqueta, without knowing why, is attacked by encephalitis lethargica: an irresistible slumber takes hold of him and there is nothing to wake him up.
His landlady enters announcing that it is office time and bringing him hot chocolate. Sarrasqueta, who is still in his lethargy, turns around.
The landlady disappears, Sarrasqueta takes the chocolate, then throws the cup on the ground, as if it had been broth. He goes back to sleep like a dormouse.
……
And when the maid told him that, according to the summary from the lottery, he had won the big one, he jumps out of bed and is finally delethargized.
(Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1920) (The available scan is rather low resolution, so it’s not worth breaking up into individual panels.)
(one panel of eight featuring this recurrent character)
Playing the gramophone with tango records and noisy military marches, applied to those who suffer from persistent migraine or encephalitis lethargica, awakens, rejoices, and relieves them.
(Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1922)
(Box labeled “Quinine against runny nose”)
Not now, by the Russian knout and the Prussian Pickelhaube
and by the swords with which they fight,
we suffer from the Russian snuff
and we in grace cheat ourselves.
All of Europe’s sovereigns
have got a sense of the snuff;
but thrones shall not fall
just for this sudden catarrh…
Then England’s proud mistress
does not go free of the flu,
may Spain’s little king reconsider,
that she also rules over him.
And look at Bismarck, look at him,
he was a grand old diplomat!
He cannot outsmart her,
she grabbed him neatly.
There, in the high courtrooms,
living doctors fall asleep easily;
but behold, she is still awake,
and you do not know her right.
It has been said that she passes so gently:
she pinches, but lightly and softly.
Well, it’s tiny! She cruelly martyrs royal purple.
Yes, the kingdom, it is sick.
(Fäderneslandet, Stockholm, 1889)
Simplicissimus no. 44 (Munich, 1922)
Mayor. “What good brings you here, madame flu?”
The flu. “I come, like I do every year, to listen to The Song of Forgetting.”
(El Mentidero, Madrid, 1919)
“Man, how long has it been since we saw each other! What’s been happening with you?”
“I’ve been down with the flu.”
“So are you okay?”
“The doctor says yes, but I still feel heaviness in my head.”
(Buen humor, Madrid, 1923)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 