How nice of you to come

“How nice of you to come down to my place! You will help me treat a friend who’s arriving from Rio de Janeiro with yellow fever.”
(Le Charivari, Paris, 1878)

On the coast

“Have you ever drunk that bloody rotgut that the English call whiskey?”
“Yes.”
“Well! that’s what cured me of yellow fever on the coast of Africa.”
(Le Journal amusant, Paris, 1907)

Puppy logic

“He says he has yellow fever, only the major doesn’t want to acknowledge it.”
“Nothing special, a blue [rookie] with yellow fever, he should be all green!”
(Le Régiment, Paris, 1915)

News of note for immigrants to South America

The cartoon features panels for Uruguay (hunger), Argentina (debt), and Chile (military strife), but it is the Brazilian one (yellow fever) that is relevant for our purposes:
There is silver and fever that’s a killer,
but it’s more the fever than the silver.
(Caras y Caretas, Montevideo, 1891)

In the age of vaccination mania

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)

The epidemics

Yellow fever, plague, and smallpox stand arrayed in chorus against public health in the person of Oswaldo Cruz, the biologist and government official most closely identified with Brazil’s efforts to introduce obligatory vaccination.
(choir in the background) “If it weren’t for you getting in the way of our sinister steps, what a good harvest we would have made during the visit of the American fleet!”
(Revista da Semana, Rio de Janeiro, 1908) (Compare Oswaldo Cruz’s iconic status in O Malho.)

Today

Smith’s Weekly, Sydney, 1949

They are all pirates!

The machinists are going to drive me crazy – those pirates of capitalism! – some of the colleagues – those government pirates! – the engineers – those pirates of irrigation! – and even mosquitoes – those pirates of summer!
(Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1912) (A comical variant of Fitzcarraldo, you might say.)

We only remember Santa Barbara…

(Newspapers are reporting that with cases of yellow fever on board a steamer coming from Bahia to Rio Grande do Sul, the former mosquito-killer brigade service was partially restored.)
Mosquito killer: “What!… Are you here again?!”
Yellow fever: “I’m just passing through, to kill… I miss you… But if you want, I can do you a favor…”
Mosquito killer: “A favor!… What?…”
Yellow fever: “Staying in Rio de Janeiro for a while, in order to give you and your companions a farewell to the brigade… The health authorities only remember me when I am present, and after all you also need to kill… hunger! I have a good heart and I can come here from time to time to keep the “sacred fire” of prevention!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

Overdue bill

“It is the owner himself who wishes to talk to you about the bill you refuse to pay.”
“Whaddya mean, I will be delighted to see him, only warn him that I am suffering; I don’t know if it will be from cholera or yellow fever.”
(Le Journal amusant, Paris, 1908)

“High” cloud appears that sometimes darkens over our heads

(The press is discussing whether a new invasion of mosquitoes could lead to a recurrence of yellow fever.)
(Cloud of mosquitoes labeled “yellow fever,” “purple,” “green,” “blue,” “etc.”)
City of Rio: “Go away, long-legged bandits! Go away, damn vehicles of fevers of all colors! Go away!”
Dr. Seidl: “Don’t be so scared, madame! Here I am armed to the teeth against this horde of mosquitoes!”
Joe Public: “Hey, doc, the lady is right! You can have a lot of strength and a lot of goodwill, but… a swallow just doesn’t make summer! Against this cloud, which darkens the air and appears over our heads, I see only one remedy: the replacement of the strategic killer-mosquito brigade. Are there not so many others here? Because this is useful!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

Interpretations

Chief of prevention: “Let’s put a lid on this thing! This, with the addition of rainwater, becomes a site for larvae that, after their biological evolution, become yellow-fever-bearing mosquitos transmitting jaundice-related typhus.”
Municipal worker: “So this lady of yours is very much mistaken. This here is a hole.”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1929)

Get back, worm!

(Employing a polite version of the caption.) (The captain of a steamship from Bahia has died of yellow fever. The captain’s wife is quarantined at a local hospital. These facts greatly impressed the public spirit, which was startled by the threat of the invasion of yellow evil.)
Yellow fever: “Make yourself comfortable! This is the paradise of professional freedom!…”
Joe Public (small lecture to officials culminating in:) “Come on, gentlemen! A little energy, against the greatest enemy of our land!”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

The future of inoculation

Ah, the spirit of speculation in the vaccination market.
(Punch, London, 1881)

Bahia exports

(It has been verified that the yellow fever patients admitted to the isolation ward are all from Bahia.)
“This is what the relaxation of the Bahia government is exporting to Rio de Janeiro, associated with the sheer (?) disability of its Hygiene” (i.e., public health organizations).
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1914)