“I don’t ‘old with this ‘ere vaccination, Mrs. Green. What’s vaccination done for my little Tommy? Since I ‘ad ‘im done ‘e’s ‘ad whooping cough, chicken-pox, measles–in fact, everythink but small-pox!”
(Punch, London, 1915)
Continuing our clystère theme, a few verses from Le Monde comique (Paris, 1869).
In a provincial town
I am an established pharmacist.
I drink, I eat, and, like a prince,
I have fun doing nothing.
It’s my boy who manipulates [the clystère],
And my students are charged
With getting the pill swallowed
In customers who are upset.
Alas! my little selfishness
For others dreams of typhus,
Coryza, fever, rheumatism,
Measles and cholera morbus.
I am not afraid of the epidemic,
Because, if I carry on without remorse,
I know the pharmacy too well
To make one [an epidemic?] of my body.
Canisters labeled “measles vaccine,” “yellow fever vaccine,” “dysentery vaccine,” “cholera vaccine.”
“When I’m having myself vaccinated against all diseases now, it’s a matter of life and death!”
(Kikeriki, Vienna, 1885)
“So you had the measles? I had it too, and by the way it was very serious.”
“Mine was much more serious. I had it on vacation!”
(Gutiérrez, Madrid, 1928)
“Do you know that Lolita has declared herself…?” [i.e., she has been spoken for?]
“At last…! Who?”
“No one, gals, it was measles that declared itself three days ago.”
(Buen humor, Madrid, 1923) (shaky on the idiom)
(Sydney Punch, 1867)
(Sydney Punch, 1875)
(Sydney Punch, 1867)
(Western Mail, Perth, 1913)
(Compare this German version)
(Riders of the tram include measles, tuberculosis, typhus, diphtheria, croup, and syphilis–the “606” signals Ehrlich’s Salvarsan remedy.)
Cholera Asiatica: “For heaven’s sake, let me onto this route!”
[Budapest mayor István] Bárczy the Conductor (confidently denigrating her): “Well, don’t you see the sign saying it’s ‘Full!’?”
(Borsszem Jankó, Budapest, 1910)
(Smallpox, typhus, and measles are still among us, which have been full of pleasantries.) (?)
Marcolino: “Dr. Carlos Chagas [discoverer of the eponymous disease, AKA trypanosomiasis] shouldn’t be going to Europe now.”
Mr. Mosquito: “And; the sanitary state of the city demands his presence and a lot of work.”
“I’m not lacking for that. And in Europe, the ship on which he travels can be “interdicted”…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1926) (This translation clearly wants improvement.)
Little Gretel is sick with measles and her neighborhood friends are no longer visiting her because of this. When she is supposed to say her nighttime prayer, she hesitates at its beginning, where the dear little angels are summoned to her bedside. The mother admonishes her, since now that she is sick, she should pray correctly, but Gretel responds in poignant resignation: “Oh, Mama, the little angels won’t come to me, because I have the measles.”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1872)
“Remarkable, Schwamberger the official is not allowed to go to the office, because his youngest child has measles, now he’s taking the tram in the morning to breeze about, he goes to the coffee house in the afternoon for a round of cards, he visits the theater every evening out of sheer boredom, and he takes a seat afterwards in a pub and a person is still supposed to believe in a contagion?”
(Figaro, Vienna, 1888)
“Where do you get that there’s an epidemic?”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1989)
(A businesswoman.) Doctor: “What can I do for you?”
Peasant woman: “Could I have a small kickback? The whole village got measles from my child!”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1902)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 