They’ve been pulling out the corpse so long that they’re going to get cholera from it

This is an elaborate and slightly intriguing variant on the disease metaphor in politics. Since before the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich of 1867, Czech nationalists had aspired to a similar agreement with the German-speaking populace in the Bohemian lands. The Old Czech faction pressed repeatedly for a formal list of potential points of agreement (the dead horse labeled “Punktace”), largely centered on a strategy of cooperation with the great landowners and loyalty to the Habsburg monarchy. After 1874 the Young Czech faction rejected this strategy and demanded more direct representation in the parliament, hobbling any compromise. The Old Czechs made a final push for an agreement in 1890, but with the victory of the Young Czechs in the elections the following spring, any prospect for its success faded from view. This cartoon from the Prague satirical journal Šípy in 1892 mocks several Old Czech politicians as they endeavor to lift the dead horse, one applying generous quantities of carbolic acid.

The scourge

“Preventing cholera from entering is fine. But would you tell me, Mr. Prune, what has been done for thirty years against constipation?” (Le Rire, 1911)

Convenient rest stop

Cholera: “They block my path at the border everywhere, and if it weren’t for Hungary, I wouldn’t be able to take a break from my trip around the world.”
(Bolond Istók, Budapest, 1910) Let’s hope Mr. Emergency Decree can appreciate this kind of epidemic humor.

The German god

“Always with God!” Note the conflation of poison gas with spreading bacterial contagion. The man is carrying inflammable liquid along with cholera, tuberculosis, and typhus “confetti.”
(L’Asino, Rome, 1918)

Ingenious precautions

Really wandering beyond my ken here, but I find this image from the Italian satirical magazine L’Asino rather amusing. The eponymous mascot is pouring disinfectant on what seems to be a very clerical populace below. The caption reads, “It has been a long time that The Ass has been fighting against microbes… cholera microbes.” (I imagine there is word play on the sense of “choleric” here, but I don’t speak Italian.) The magazine was stridently anticlerical, and the winking implication is that it has been doing battle with metaphorical contagions, while cholera (the sixth pandemic then touching mainly the easternmost portions of Europe) was a literal latecomer.
(L’Asino, Rome, 1910)

This’ll wake him up at once!

Health Commission (armchair). Cholera, bearing a container of carbolic acid and a decree in her pocket, pulls the pigtail of the mayor of Prague: “Hey, Senator, get up, I wouldn’t want to catch you by surprise!” (The mayor sleeps further with his spectacles.) “I say, I’m the cholera!” (Nothing.) “I’m telling you, wake up!! (Still nothing.) “Listen: the municipal elections are at the front door!!“
Mayor of Prague: (Instantly wakes up and starts making budget cuts.)
(Czech satirical magazine Šípy, Prague, 1892)

The war with insects

Bugs bearing bags of infectious bacteria. “Everyone to war with disease-bearing insects.” Soviet Ukrainian Commissariat of People’s Health, 1920.
(Russian State Library)

Cholera in Russia

To state bankruptcy and famine: “Were you to grant my request, I would be the third member of your alliance.”
(Glühlichter, Vienna, 1892)

Imprisoned pashas

File under “Lo, how the mighty have fallen,” a poster c. 1908 depicting imprisoned pashas attacked by cholera, likely in the wake of the Young Turk revolution. Let us hope the Turkish descendent in Downing Street recovers quickly from both the virus and his epidemiological foolishness.
(Digital National Museum in Warsaw)

Jeremiah Fastidious

Jeremiah Fastidious and his patented anti-cholera equipment.
(Figaro, Vienna, 1892) (There is a similar image from the 1918 flu pandemic. The satirical theme goes back at least to 1832, in this marvelous example preserved by the Wellcome Collection.)

Cholera and political parties in Russia

“Fear each other, fight each other as you like, party leaders! I will reconcile all of you as an independent!”
(Polish satirical magazine Mucha, Warsaw, 1908)

Finally a reliable measure

Russian Imperial Ministry of Health issuing flood of directives.
Cholera [angel of death]: “I have to get out of here, because even I will come to an end with cholera from such a bombardment.”
(Polish satirical magazine Mucha, Warsaw, 1910)

Protection against cholera danger!

If you are anxious about venturing out in these pandemic times, may I suggest Mr. Windmüller’s “highly elegant” Liquor Cane (German patent 64321), which holds ten shots of cognac to protect you against disease. (Meggendorfers Humoristische Blätter, 1892)

Latest revelations from the public health authorities

Cholera draws the curtain on a slum and speaks to the public health commission: “Grasp the life of man complete, and wherever you touch, there’s interest without end!” (Glühlichter, Vienna, 1892) A colleague points out that this phrasing is taken from a text known to any contemporary German speaker: the Prelude to Goethe’s Faust.

In other words, there is ample precedent to talk about differential privilege in physical distancing.

Category: cholera