Details from the “Nail porridge” series in the Brazilian satirical magazine O Malho, published with the Spanish flu epidemic underway and the world war just concluded.
Man with head in bucket: “It is no longer the flu, it is relapse and old addiction.”
Man emerging from coffin: “What a mess. If I had known that the war was going to end soon, I would not have died of the flu.”
Line of annoying Allied celebrants: The other epidemic.
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)
“You passed this year by a miracle. Now try to study for real.”
“There’s no need. The flu is coming back.”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)
For the instruction of the populace posters of an impending epidemic will occasionally be put up by the city council. (The first poster forbids sour pickles, rotten vegetables, and (I think) abortions (!), while demanding cleanliness.)
We believe, however, that it would also be immensely useful to include a placard published on behalf of the populace: For the instruction of the city council. (The second poster wants better channeling of the Danube river against floods, better water services, better waste removal.)
(Kikeriki, Vienna, 1886)
“But you’re not afraid to go to the Pyrenees, where cholera is so close?”
“I was afraid, but my wife advised an excellent method to me: after the border I will travel under an assumed name.”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1884)
“They are assembling together…” Purishkevich (to cholera while beating it with his umbrella): “It might be failing right now, we’ll have more ways to entertain the public.” (Purishkevich was an ultraconservative and anti-Semitic Russian politician who had recently fallen out with one set of protofascist allies and was cultivating a new group under the name “Russian People’s Union of the Archangel Michael.” Presumably Satirikon regarded neither Purishkevich nor cholera as good for the health of the Russian body politic.)
(Satirikon, St. Petersburg, 1908)
Balkan peninsula. “Humanity is oppressed by various infectious bacteria: plague, cholera, typhus, yellow fever, etc. But worse than all these is the bacillus called bacillus germanicus, which constantly provokes hatred and militant sentiments around the world. Here we provide an image of this bacillus.”
(Kogut, Warsaw, 1910)
Disinfection Site No. 0001
“Give me my clothes, it’s freezing.”
“You’re crazy! Do you think your two million bits of typhus don’t have to meditate in the boiler before deciding to die?”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1922)
“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)
Summer visits — the Asian guest. Cover image of the Russian satirical magazine Satirikon as cholera in the southern provinces of the empire was making itself felt more widely.
(Satirikon, St. Petersburg, 1908)
This image of death on wheels is a bit ambiguous for our purposes, but it was published just at the moment when a cholera epidemic in the Caucasus was reaching the Russian capital, so I shall classify it accordingly.
(Satirikon, St. Petersburg, 1908)
“Where do you get that there’s an epidemic?”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1989)
“… And now, mademoiselle, before you grant me your heart for life, one other question: Have you been successfully vaccinated?”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1905)
(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)
So very English, this Punch cartoon from 1869.
Pastor: “Hey, you kids, why aren’t you going to school today?”
Kids: “We’re sick, Pastor, we have the measles.”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1884)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 