From “Sun and Moon”

Waiting for cholera, lurking,
Day and Night are keen competitors.
There’s no cholera and they moan: lo,
All the crooning comes to nothing.
(Borsszem Jankó, Budapest, 1910)
(French operetta composer Charles Lecocq opened Le jour et la nuit in 1881, featuring a somewhat racy farce of concealed nuptial identities. The Hungarian premier, under the title “Sun and Moon,” came in Debrecen in 1884, while a 1899 Budapest production seems to have become a modest staple of the repertoire for a time, enough so that Budapest readers would have appreciated the rhymed couplets here. The return of cholera in 1910 proved not to be as deadly as the experience of 1892.)

Report from Africa

“Ah! There you are, my husband!… What do you bring me from Africa, my darling?”
“I’m bringing you a dysentery and an ophthalmia…”
(Le Charivari, Paris, 1849)

Unhealthy spirit in a healthy body

(A gang has been uncovered that is faking certificates of illness for obtaining health insurance benefits.)
“What? You have tuberculosis? But do you know how much tuberculosis costs now? Better you should have a stomach ulcer. For yours–get well soon!”
(Krokodil, Moscow, 1925)

Phenacetin

Doctor: “You have the flu? I’ll prescribe you Phenacetin. It the most modern treatment that we have. But do it quickly, before it goes out of fashion.”
(Figaro, Vienna, 1895)

Shall we summon War?

Cholera: “Extraordinary, this human breed! We work, and we can’t exterminate it!”
Plague: “Would it help us if we summoned War?”
(L’Assiette au beurre, Paris, 1908)

Cholera congress

“Are you voting for the government?”
“No, for the opposition.”
“This man has cholera; put him to bed and make him sweat a lot.”
“First I will vote.”
“No, barbarian, health comes first!”
(Gil Blas, Madrid, 1865)

The flu

(Bicycle agents directly fill prescriptions by service pharmacists.)
“Do not worry… In the police, we know the ‘prescriptions’!”
(Excelsior, Paris, 1918)

Beneficial souls

“You went to the dance, eh?… If you tell me that, you’ll make me go crazy with your madness!…”
“Yes, boy, yes, come back… If consumption didn’t exist there would be no Tuberculosis parties…”
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1910)

Measures against cholera

Vasile Morţun [Romanian politician and writer]. And with that phrase we end the circular. Continuing, Mr. Copyist:
“Therefore, the mayors of rural communities are invited to take emergency measures to combat cholera, whose so-called comma-bacillus is currently wreaking havoc in neighboring countries.”
The mayor of Pelagroșii de Jos. “Stan Poşircă, why don’t you take the paper back and go to hell with it! Do you want to fill the village with cholera?”
“Me, Mr. Mayor ?!”
“You and your petition that has more than 14 commas: I counted them myself!”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1910)

Microbo-political miscellany

From Cosmorama pittorico, Milan, 1884:

While the figure of Cavallotti surrounds himself with a new halo…. [Here labeled “Professor of Sacrifice,” leftist Italian politician Felice Cavallotti was notoriously combative and, as it happens, known for his gift for satire. It seems he led the fight against the cholera epidemic then underway in the city.]

… two organs of the press that claim to be democratic, instead of thinking of alleviating the great disaster that strikes us, beat each other without the public sympathizing with them… on the contrary!

Since quarantine and sanitary cordons remain useless, it is time to turn to the public authorities and enforce the law.

The needlefish of the Duomo seems to have the virtue of keeping commas away. And make it last! [“Comma” meaning the comma-bacillus associated with cholera.]

When the flying dirigible is perfected, everyone can safely escape all present and future diseases.

Miraculous discovery made in these days, by which, without the help of chemistry, you can make real and good protections… [last line obscured]

Dear guests

or, Hamburg wines in Budapest,
or, the brilliant march of Cholera into the capital city.
(This comic exchange is littered with malapropisms that I have doubtless failed to convey properly, but the arrival of cholera from Hamburg in 1892 played into Budapest municipal politics in complex ways. The city was growing extremely rapidly and becoming more Hungarian in the process, but German-speaking burghers still played important mediating roles, and they are the main object of satire here.)
Mr. Finances: “Halt! Vere do your horsehides come from, Schlesinger?”
Schlesinger [caricatured here as Jewish]: “Vere vould zey come from if not Hamburg?”
Mr. Finances: “Then you won’t be held up!… Let him pass!…”
Dr. Müller: “St. Roch, in the name of public health! I forbid it!”
Dr. Farkas: “They are importing cholera germs. It is forbidden!”
Dr. Csatáry: “To battle against cholera! Down with the horsehides! In particular, Dr. Schwimmer will make a declaration next to the horsehides in his capacity as dermatologist!”
Dr. Farkas: “Quite so! And Dr. Krebs as the head of the emergency services association will find it desirable to create a situation where he has to save everyone!”
Dr. Gebehart: “The question is, is it true that it comes from Asia? Isn’t it just a forged thing, this cholera? It ought to be done here!”
District mayor Gerlóczy: “Quite so, it ought to be eaten here! Organize a capital city banquet in honor of cholera!”
Monsignor Mayor Ráth: “Deeply respected Madame Cholera! Welcome, we did not expect you! You are most welcome within the visitor-friendly walls of the capital city, you should feel right at home among us, so that you may be our constant good fortune. We also hope that you will be satisfied with the precautionary measures we have taken in receiving your eminence. May the god who is kind feed our high guest to the very limits of the human age!”
(Noisy cheering. Harnessing the horses, the eastern guest is solemnly drawn to the town hall.)
(Bolond Istók, Budapest, 1892)

Have no fear!

“Now fellahs! We’ve just gotten the municipal code, too!”
“Well then, Mr. City Councilman! We’re not afraid of that. We’ve already had cholera and we didn’t die of that, either!”
(Kladderadatsch, Germany, 1850)

Victims of science

“And how’s business?”
“Ah! Don’t talk to me about it, their “606” has killed condom sales.”
(L’Assiette au beurre, Paris, 1910)

Remarkably, the entire issue is devoted to Paul Ehrlich’s “606” miracle cure for syphilis.

The flu

From Le Charivari, Paris, 1848:

View of a pharmacist shop in January 1848. “Each in turn, gentlemen, each in turn.”

“Well, my dear, it is impossible for me to pay you today; I have the flu.”

“Where are your men, lieutenant?”
“My commander, they’ve all gone to bed.”

“Just a few more bottles of my syrup, and I hope you’ll get better.”

At the show. General sneezing across the board.

“Come on, coachman, come on!”
“I can’t go any faster, sir, my horse has the flu.”

A mistress of the house has to eat alone a dinner prepared for forty people. (No doubt punning on “quarantine.”)

Acclimatization of Abd-el-Kader. (Algerian military leader then held captive by the French. Note the clystère in the background, a familiar French theme.)
“Cristi! This time here I am completely taken!”

Cholera does not come to France for fear of catching the flu there.

Preventive measures for cholera (2)

From Lo Spirito folletto, Milan, 1873:

to review and throw in the channel all the adulterated wines of the few, but dishonest brewers…

…for whom it would be good in this heat to chastise them by imposing the transport of the monolith of San Ambrogio to Piazza del Duomo and back again.

A commission will be appointed to oversee and prevent the sale of fruit. The varieties will be treated with the greatest concern.

The Ciocchin, undertaker of all the horses of the Milanese citizenry, must have the utmost respect for the dead beasts in his care!!