“If I were playing the stock market, mummy dearest, I would like to speculate, despite cholera, for when it really comes, the demand for paper goods will surely be even greater.” (No bonus points for noting the unsubtle ethnic signaling here.)
(Die Bombe, Vienna, 1884)
Cholera (to the Italians and Turks): “Why are you fighting about joint possession in Tripoli? You have the best company in me right now.”
(Wiener Caricaturen, Vienna, 1911)
Doctor: “Now that it has been established from the bacteria that we have cholera among us, it means that we must act promptly.”
Second doctor: “And indeed very promptly! That is why I propose that an urgent request to the city council regarding the assembly of experts for preparation of a draft plan for introduction of a high-quality water supply on account of the renovation [?] of our capital is to be introduced immediately, (in Hungarian) I humbly request….” (Lost here are the cartoon’s subtler linguistic caricatures amid the mockery of hyperbureaucratic formulations.)
(Figaro, Vienna, 1886)
Bony St. Petersburg cholera shakes hands with oriental plague, while Red Cross sled bears anti-plague serum toward invading pigtailed Chinese figures. Oblivious Russian celebrants dance around posters for wrestling, skating, masquerade balls, farces, operettas, movies, and circus performances. (Not sure which Russian politician is depicted at the top, since Pyotr Stolypin–soon to resign–was balding.)
(Ogonek, Russia, 1911)
Illustration by Grandville in La Caricature, undated (c. 1831).
(Gallica)
“And godmother dear, how’s your man?”
“How’s he doing? … well, fine, because the poor devil has died.”
“And what did he die from?”
“From disinfection.”
“What kind of disease is that?”
“The one that comes before cholera… people are more afraid of it than cholera itself.”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1886)
See also these miasmatic contemporary images of disinfection measures at Paris train stations (and again in 1892).
“The Russian regime has initiated an aid campaign against famine, since a radical solution of the problem has been made possible by cholera anyhow.” (Meaning it’s just for show and the weak state won’t have to try very hard.)
(Die Glühlichter, Vienna, 1910)
Cholera (to capitalism and militarism, seated on the proletariat): “Were you to grant my request, I would be the third in your alliance.”
(Die Glühlichter, Vienna, 1893)
“Cholera has already taken up residence with us and her bony army of death threatens factories and plants, it threatens the army. To arms! Get vaccinated! The enemy does not wait!” (Ekaterinodar, 1920) (Russian State Library)
Doctor: “Well, Herr Councillor, you have returned from your business trip quite corpulent, you’ve bounced back from cholera quite well and are making improvements to your diet!”
Councillor: “That’s just it. Herr Doctor told me: ‘Only diet! Only diet!’ and right away I followed it strictly in the plural!”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1855)
The siege artillery is intended to evacuate the fortresses and to operate on the rear of the enemy. (The general is mounted on a clystère or syringe suitable for enemas, which turns out to be a recurrent theme of contemporary French political satire.)
(La Caricature, Paris, 1831.) (See also this version from 1833.) (This British print from 1800-1805 is the earliest Anglophone satirical invocation I’ve found of the disgust which this mechanism could induce.)
The earliest French clystère cartoon I’ve found is entitled “Trendy physician, or the colic of those medical gentlemen who have seen their urine and said that they are very sick.” (via Gallica, 1784)
The police in Sommermoll tolerate no unripe fruit at the market; these are immediately thrown away, so that they can do no harm.
Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1892.
Mars negotiates the breakup of Ottoman Turkey with Cholera, seated on a barrel of carbolic acid. Peace the Diplomat approaches the table.
Diplomat: “But you’ve already divided up everything.”
Turk (perched on German Pickelhaube): “Well now I understand what the friendly support of Germany means!”
Russian satirical magazine Ogonek no. 49, 1910.
“Confound it!” As the fourth global cholera epidemic swept through Bavaria, a recovering victim contemplated the difficulty of returning to normal food consumption, having improvised ways to cushion the blows to his bodily orifices wrought by cholera’s violent dehydrating symptoms.
(Die Bremse, Munich, 1873)
Le Petit Journal, Paris, 1912
(Note added: image known to many from Frank Snowden’s Epidemics and Society.)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 