(The fancy hat at upper left is labeled “obligatory vaccination.” The gentleman standing before Mother Helvetia carries the vaccination law.)

In the picture the grand lady peers indecisively from her seat. Before her lie three soldiers dead from vaccination (don’t do it!), men whose bodies had been given over to the free disposal of the city vaccinator (freedom!). Medicine dreams pleasantly of vaccination practice, while science turns away in shame from the accusation of lying which the opponents (nonsensical!) lodge at her. The citizens count the deceased (more than one as a result of vaccination!) and on the cow sits the lanceman [administering the knick of inoculation] making new sacrifices to the vaccination law, while the mother buries her child who died from a bad inoculation batch. “O century, freedom and science flourish, it is a pleasure to live!” (Evoking the great Reformation thinker Erasmus.)
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1882)