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)
“Please, doctor, I would like you to inoculate me with [attenuated] smallpox, because I am afraid of getting the real thing. But I wouldn’t want to disfigure my shoulders [with a vaccination scar], especially since I often have to show décolletage. So can’t I be inoculated for smallpox on my leg? After all, it is all the same thing…”
“Yes, it’s all the same for the smallpox, but not for the doctor…”
(Goniec i iskra, Lwów, 1891)
And a similar cartoon some years later:
“Dear doctor, I am so afraid of smallpox, but will it be visible when you inoculate on my calf?”
“It only depends on you!”
(Kolce, Warsaw, 1908)
In the same sexist vein, a Hungarian cartoon:
Effective argument
“I didn’t bring the medical certificate, but here is the location for the flu vaccination…”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1974)
Or another twist:
Alibi ju jour
“This is silly, hickeys like that! What am I going to tell Ernest?”
“That your vaccines have taken very well, by Jove!”
(Le Rire, Paris, 1907) (Another French cartoon with related themes. And another from 1920.)
Brigadier general: “Captain, the company looks terrific! People are getting proper bellies–and without a warm supper!”
Captain: “General, at your command, sir! That stems from influenza body-bandages!”
(Figaro, Vienna, 1891)
(clockwise from upper left)
1) “Uncle, Jasi’s uncle refused him money and died of influenza.”
“And he’s an ass!”
2) “Sir, and my rent?”
“I can’t speak with you today because I have influenza.”
3) “Either I’ll get a new hat or influenza tomorrow. What do you prefer?”
4) With influenza to the card game.
5) The surest way to forget about influenza!
6) “Will it be a boy or a girl?”
“It is… influenza!”
(Kolce, Warsaw, 1891)
(Punch, London, 1891)
“… What, Mr. Brewmaster, you haven’t had influenza yet? Congratulations! … It’s strange that this disease affects the finer people; I’ve had it twice!”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1891) (redrawn and upped to “thrice” in Haagsche courant, 1898)
Beware, there is Drought in Mecca!
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1891)
“If you don’t listen to my advice, you will never get over typhus…”
“Doctor, I don’t want to get over typhus, just for typhus to get over me.”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1891)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 