Typhus vector: Yeah, you used to play the saz [traditional lute]… Why do you need to play the drums now? Why don’t you work quietly like me and don’t bother anyone?
Malaria vector: Don’t worry… even the drums are not loud enough now!
(Karikatür, Istanbul, 1943)
Smith’s Weekly, Sydney, 1949
(At the French Foreign Legion Offices)
“Messieurs, according to our rules, we must draw your attention to the dangers that you can expect in the Foreign Legion: you can get sunstroke in Africa, malaria in Tonkin China, and sleeping sickness in the Congo…”
“It doesn’t matter, just so there are no Prussian lieutenants anywhere!”
(Der wahre Jacob, Stuttgart, 1914)
Malarial mosquito (gazing in horror at People’s Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko): “Here is a harmful insect! One of its stings’ll cost you.”
(Krokodil, Moscow, 1925)
China: “I will make it HOT for you!”
(Puck, New York, 1883)
(Brazil’s great public health crusader Oswaldo Cruz intends to spread his measures to the distant provinces.)
Joe Public: “Go, wise hygienist […]! God be with you in this new and holy crusade, which you undertake with the sacrifice of your own life! But, in addition to malaria, you could also destroy those other microbes… [depicted are idleness, filth, oligarchy, yellow fever, demonstrations, beri-beri, and banditry] then that would be a bargain!…”
Oswaldo Cruz: “Impossible, my dear Joe! They are microbes of politics and there is no peaceful hygiene that I can use with them… Only you, with the power of protests, can one day put an end to these beasts!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1910)
Title: “Malicious.” This image relies on some punning in German, where malen means drawing or painting, and Malweiber is a somewhat derogatory way of referring to women who draw. “Just look at all those women drawing over there! It’s already practically an epidemic!” “Yes, yes, in a way it’s ‘malaria’!”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1907)
(Punch, London, 1919)
Clerk: “What do you want?”
Orientalized crone: “To register.”
“What have you done to that end?”
“Nothing else! I’m just Malaria and it does say in the newspapers that the Bundesrat has decided to extend the change-of-residence obligation to Malaria, too!”
“What is your first name? How old are you? Are you married? Vaccinated? Divorced? You have to fill out everything here; then we’ll see!”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1919)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 