Precautions that must be taken to avoid the spread of the epidemic, and which offer a flawless result. (Among the items affixed to him: camphor, naphthalene, quinine, cinnamon, “Sorry for not shaking your hand,” flypaper, “Please speak to me at a distance,” alcohol, mint, fumigation by censor, a ventilation device, and what I take to be pads for absorbing humidity. Having a thermometer always at the ready is a crowning touch.) (Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1918) (Note the similarity to Jeremiah Fastidious from 1892)
Sarrasqueta, concerned about the flu, has devoted himself to studying flagella, with deep scientific research, using the microscope, the gossip machine and all the manuals on home medicine.
Argentine flu cartoon
After long experiments he has come to suspect that the flu is a Spanish pop singer, that she is making propaganda, and that she makes people sick with a glance from her eyes, attacking only weak, but well-heeled people.
He has slowly studied the case of a patient who turned out not to have the flu, because he was poor, but suffered a sudden attack of chronic flamenco.
From this patient he managed to extract and isolate the flamenco microbe by leaving him alone, bored and swimming in serum in an ampoule, which is the antidote to the flu, defeating it with a single injection.
Using the microscope, he managed to magnify the flu bacillus to a hundred thousand diameters, seeing that it affects the shape of a pretty Spanish-American-Russian-Japanese or of confraternity, with undulating and rapid movements.
Once the flamenco serum is injected in the patient with the flu, such a gypsy dance is mounted between both bacilli that to calm the patient from his nervousness, one has to play the guitar for a while.
The symptoms of the disease are an increase in temperature, drum roll noises in the head, desire to dance, ending in the cries: Help! Protection! Mercy! Console me! (They are other pop singers)
The best protections to defend against this benign flu confraternity is to take the air, refresh the blood, and have no money to spend.
The infallible remedy is when it becomes known that they do not pay for the days lost at the office. With this detail, all the infection groups of the international flu will be completely exterminated.
Though it has come to sound a little old-fashioned in English, it is still possible to refer to the flu as “grippe.” This Argentine cartoon is punning relentlessly on the senses of “grip” (e.g., inverting “in the grip of panic” in the title) and I will surely mistake some of the participles, but let’s give it a try. “All the press is propagating the notion that the grippe is a bad thing. “With this I have a pretext to fail at my post.” For this reason the pharmacist is gaining a fortune. The man at Medical Aid takes advantage of the emergency to show off his great science. Chorus of doctors: according to all the symptoms that it can present, the grippe is a minor thing or it can be aggravated. Anyone who is employed has, of course, been “in the grip.” “I want to get a grip on myself, but it is in vain, I am not “grippy,” nor am I “gripping,” nor am I a “gripper.” Only the poor cartoonist is the constant victim of the general contagion, and works at all times, whether he is well or he is ill.” (Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1918)
Then they say that I develop among the crowds; and as soon as the people took to the streets to celebrate the triumph of the allies, I had to be moved! (Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1918)
“How many victims has the epidemic caused?” “About ten thousand…” THE VOICE OF SOMEONE TRAPPED IN A COFFIN: “As for those who did not die…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)
Comic notes sponsored by Glauda Vermouth in Argentina during the flu pandemic of 1918.
“And in this room, which is twice the size, are they also from the flu?” “No, sir; those are from the group.” (Sorry, I don’t know how to convey the pun.) (Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1918)
Argentine flu cartoon
“Are you moving, Don Aniceto?” “No, sir; it’s just that I’ve put all this junk behind the door, so the flu doesn’t get in.”
“Is it really the “Spanish,” doctor?” “No, my son, it’s the “juice epidemic,” you’re sensing the smell of sweat.” “Good heavens, doctor, won’t it be … cholera morbus?” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918) (Definitely missed some wordplay here…something about “vulgar death”?)
Some sad news for our little readers: Manecas is sick with a severe attack of pneumonia-flu and, since it is very difficult to speak, sends us this suggestive drawing, an exact expression of what he has suffered. (Manecas was a mascot of this satirical supplement.) (O Século Cómico / Ilustração Portuguesa, Lisbon, 1918)
“The Quartet” is the new fashionable disease; and the Quartet is enemy of the Allies since Bulgaria’s defection. This is: Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Spanish flu.” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)
“Take one drop at lunch and another at dinner.” “Yes, sir, but where am I going to get lunch and dinner?” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918) (I might have missed the idiom in the title.) (A later German cartoon with a similar motif.)
Brazilian flu cartoon
A nearly identical Soviet cartoon aimed at contemporary Germany: “Are you taking the medicine daily after lunch?” “I take it after the lunch bell, Herr Doctor: we don’t have lunch every day.” (Krokokil, Moscow, 1936)
Guard: “Have you had the “Spanish” thing?” Drunk: “No, sir! The “Spanish” thing does not attack me. Vaccinate me with rum and lemon!” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)
“That’s the Spanish flu. Do not expose yourself to not staying on your spine.” (Spain/spine, get it? OK, it doesn’t really work in translation.) (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)
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)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 