Little lady: “As soon as it’s spring, these awful newspapers will start printing things about the falling exchange rate, about cholera in France and Italy… And what for? So that you men will have an excuse to deny wives the chance to spend the summer abroad.”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1885)
“What a pity, darling: my husband says that this summer we won’t have a carriage, because there is no cholera, and there won’t be carriages to take doctors from the city.”
“So you’re saying we won’t have to go on our promenades in a donated carriage!”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1874)
Son: “Papa, what’s plague? Is it pestering us?”
Father: “It’s your mama.”
Mother: “Will you leave me alone, you obnoxious brute?!”
Father: “Leave alone! There’s the first instance of the unobtrusiveness of the plague.”
(Strekoza, St. Petersburg, 1879)
(Notwithstanding the flatfooted sexism of this cartoon, there was a recurrence of actual plague in Russia at this time.)
(sign labeled “Landfill”)
“The fountainhead is leaking, don’t look at that, turn your eyes somewhere else, turn your eyes somewhere else.”
(Tuulispää, Helsinki, 1907)
Doctor: “You called for me? Tell me what you’re feeling.”
Merchant’s wife: “Thank God I’m healthy for now, but I’m taking ill immediately, because I had a bad dream today. An acquaintance of mine, Pulkheria Ivanovna, also had a terrible dream before she took ill with typhus…”
Doctor: “In that case it was premature to summon me.”
Merchant’s wife: “Oh, doctor, you’ll anticipate this sickness and start to cure me now, while I haven’t taken ill, otherwise I’ll die of fright!”
(Strekoza, St. Petersburg, 1878)
“I’m not entirely sure where it would be best to introduce myself to the new boss: at the hospital or at the prison?”
“You know, doctor, I think it would be best to introduce yourself where most of your patients are.”
“Where do you mean?”
“At the cemetary.”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1883)
Rejection in National Council!
(figure bearing various quack cures)
“In Switzerland my wares are as popular as ever!”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1927)
“Hey, Demid Egorovich, how are things going?”
“Oh, brother, Ermil Timofeich, better not to talk about it. It’s gotten to the point that you might as well lie down in the grave yourself and die! You remember how it was earlier with cholera, that’s the way things were, you just keep on working and the money, you’re raking in money by the spadeful. But these days you go out three times for a rich quickie, yeah, it’s such a shame, they’re already reading the last rites, but she’s still alive!”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1861)
“What’s going on, did your husband get the plague?”
“Yes, he just got back from Serpukhov.”
“Oh, I forgot that the plague there is in the cattle.”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1885)
Undertaker: “Poor thing, he’s wearing himself out. Better he should die.”
Doctor: “It’s nothing, let him get worn out! He was too stingy to pay for the visit.”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1885)
(The specter in the center is labeled “Comma,” signifying the cholera vibrio.)
Upper left: Now physicians are trying to do the right thing and penetrate inside their patients in order to ascertain whether they have the comma.
Upper right: Public health workers are searching for commas in every cesspool.
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1885)
Lower left: The Boss: “I can’t read your documents, there are so many commas! Right now it’s not even safe.”
Lower right: Husband: “Give you money to travel abroad, and where will I get it? The comma is there, too!”
Wife: “Oh, I want to go abroad to get away from this comma, too”
“Your article isn’t suitable. If you had written something about plague, then it would be another matter.”
“But how can I write that? I haven’t been in those locales.”
“Then what’s your imagination for?”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1879)
“I wish I were a gold coin, I’d’ve bought the Ehrlich-Hata beforehand!”
(Lustige Blätter, Berlin, 1910)
(See this cartoon for more context on this syphilis cure.)
“Get up, old lady [Moscow], why are you sleeping? The plague is coming!”
Old lady: “Why are you shouting? As if I don’t hear the plague coming? When it arrives, I’ll get up.”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1879)
“The plague take all the Englanders!” cried Uncle Krüger before fleeing.
“I already have!” said the plague, pouncing on Glasgow.
(Lustige Blätter, Berlin, 1900)
(Paul Kruger was the president of the South African Republic during the Boer War against the British. Glasgow was suffering from a small outbreak of plague at the time.)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 