(4500 deaths to date from smallpox) Penna: “How horrible!!…” Mayor: “How horrible!” Joe Public: “This is it! An epidemic that could have been vanquished perfectly well in the beginning, six months ago, when it killed 20 people a month; that it was not on a whim or relaxation and that now it laughs at those responsible!… I don’t know what I pay for these taxes that flay me! Perhaps for this: to see the people who govern me dumbfounded!” Oswaldo Cruz: “Without mandatory vaccines, I can do nothing!…” Smallpox: “Nothing, huh? Hahaha!!!…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
I lack the Portuguese knowledge to translate all these cartoons in full, but in this post I just want to highlight the iconic status of bacteriologist and public health leader Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1917). For an avowedly secular publication like O Malho, Cruz as the standard-bearer of modern medicine clearly exerted tremendous appeal, though of course its satire often drew attention to the many obstacles in the way of achieving his aims. (Each image links to the appropriate issue.)
Vaccine-mandate war!… (1904)
Brazilian public health cartoon
The journey of the mosquito czar. Reception in Victoria (1905)
Brazilian public health cartoon
Journey of the mosquito czar — arrival in Bahia (1905)
Brazilian public health cartoon
Essential cleaning (1907)
Brazilian public health cartoon
One more broom… (1907)
Brazilian public health cartoon
Cruz in provincial Pará (1910)
In Pará: Mosquito plague does not kill Governor Coelho (1911)
Brazilian public health cartoon
Federal intervention in Ceara (1914)
Brazilian public health cartoon
At the Pharoux Quay: The messiah of consumption (1908)
Brazilian public health cartoon
The great magician… of coincidences
Brazilian public health cartoon
Roping it in time (1908)
Brazilian smallpox cartoon
The challenge of tuberculosis (1906)
Brazilian tuberculosis cartoon
Plagues on the go (1907)
Brazilian plague cartoon
See also this multi-panel cartoon from 1905. And another from 1908. And a marvelous color cartoon from 1907. And this vaccination cartoon from 1904. Ditto.
(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.)
Regarding mortuary statistics and the pursuit of official hygiene toward plague, yellow fever, smallpox, scarlet fever and croup: Syphilis: “The public health fight against our illustrious colleagues continues over there…” Tuberculosis: “And in the meantime (coughing), we are very comfortable here (coughing)… There is nothing (coughing) like doing the job by the sidewalk… (coughing). We arrange more casualties annually (coughing) than all boisterous ailments together (coughing) and we are not uncomfortable…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1914)
Oswaldo Cruz [prominent Brazilian bacteriologist]: “Get thee hence, in the name of science!” Smallpox: “What science? Jenner’s? That’s known to me for 85 years and it still rides an ox cart in Brazil, whereas I already drive a car… Thrive and flourish!” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
Priests: “Deliver us from smallpox, o patron saint!” Chorus: “Ora pro nobis!“ Oswaldo Cruz [pioneering Brazilian bacteriologist, on the left, with full head of hair and mustache]: “Yes, sir! What a multitude of people! What faith! Before these prayers of the Church the science of the State is barred. I shall decidedly leave! There is nothing else I can do!” [Minister of Justice J.J.] Seabra: “Leave ?! Don’t talk about it! We will follow the procession to the end.” [President Francisco de Paula Rodrigues] Alves: “Yes… Yes… Because I am not carrying the Cross [Cruz!] of hygiene to Calvary alone!…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1904) (Compare Seabra versus Oswaldo)
Oswaldo Cruz [famous Brazilian bacteriologist]: “Did you see, my dear Barata, how smallpox declined with the increase in vaccination?” Barata Ribeiro [mayor of Rio de Janeiro, but as it happened, also trained as a physician]: “You are very mistaken! The epidemic has retreated in the face of my speeches.” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
(Patients with different epidemic diseases are being treated together at the St. Sebastian hospital.) Plague: “Well, goodbye! It doesn’t matter if you die from large pox or small ones! Typhus: “The same, I say! It all comes down to cooling the roof of the mouth!” Smallpox: “Very well! It’s the press that got their berries back in the basket!” (Better idiom needed!) “Let’s go! Let’s dance the cake-walk of mixing!” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
A cartoon set in the year of the Brazilian National Exposition in 1908: “We’re toast, my dear, we are toast! We have drought and famine, parade floats, smallpox, Exposition parties, bubonic plague, propagandists of Brazil, and now here comes cholera!” “What do you want? Disasters always come in multiples… But the worst of it all is that I don’t see men capable of curbing these ills, despite the [manioc] flour of erudition with which they are stuffed… because of the leaves.” (Meaning that appearance prevailed over substance?) (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
Teacher (to schoolchildren): “Because smallpox is rampant and it is contagious, you must tell me immediately if someone in your home gets sick.” Lina (the next day): “Mr. Teacher, last night my mother got really sick, she got a little baby; it’s already fine to be around her, because she says that it is not contagious!” (Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1874)
A physician injecting small quantities of meat extract: “Since we can now inoculate away via its own poison, not only smallpox, but also cholera, typhus, consumption, brain inflammation, in short, all bad diseases, we simply proceed in the same manner with hunger, thirst, and lack of money, inoculate it away via the corresponding medium and — who would deny it? — the social question is solved.” (Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1885)
Marianne [the French Republic]: “Here, my dear, may I present you with the peace child. Wilson’s Fourteen Points has brought it well reckoned into the world.” [Baron] v. Brockdorff [first foreign minister of the Weimer Republic]: “Nope, the child has the pox.” (Der wahre Jacob, Stuttgart, 1919)
Spanish fly, a great new medical victory in Finland. Herbalists (watching the Morbus hispanicus bacilli just flown in from the Old Clinic): They could be anything else, but not smallpox. Among the figures depicted, Richard Sievers was a Finnish-Swedish physician with German roots who was credited with sparing Finland from the cholera epidemic then developing in Russia. (Tuulispää, Helsinki, 1908)
“Mr. Coroner, your income is estimated at 10,000 thaler.” “God help me! That is far too much!” “Please, Mr. Coroner! In the spring you had chicken pox and the real smallpox, in the summer you had nervous fever, and now you’ve already had cholera for eight weeks. So it’s all brilliant dealings!” (Kladderadatsch, Germany, 1850)
Country lady: “Could the good pastor come to my husband? He is very sick.” Pastor: “Sadly, I don’t have time to come myself, but I’ll send my assistant.” Lady: “Dear pastor, don’t do that, it would be a shame to have an assistant who is young and beautiful, because my husband has smallpox!” (Tuulispää, Helsinki, 1929)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 