(Various anti-venereal medications like Salvarsan are advertised on the wall. It appears that the prices of young women offering their services are printed on their dresses.)
“Uncle Ghiță, bravo: the League did well because their prices dropped. Please continue!”
“But what do you use: I see you, old man.”
“I will profit more, because I will gain from them and their customers: I am a pharmacist!”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1919)
(Although the war is over, bloody battles are taking place in Russia every day.)
St. Peter: “Woman, where do you want to come like that?… Wipe your feet well: don’t you see what prints you leave?”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1919)
Mother Europe: “I could be eating the soup—even if it’s also over-salted—just fine, and now this impudent fellow is constantly spitting in it!”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1919) (It turns out this is not a new theme. Compare this version of “peace soup” from 1905 and this one from 1907.)
Halt! From here you shall not pass!
(Il Pasquino Coloniale, São Paulo, 1919)
Regarding warding off the threat of the Spanish flu
A preventive measure that imposes itself: Gagging journalists prevents any alarm in the population
Two panels from a dozen on ways to fight the flu.
(Caras y caretas, Buenos Aires, 1919)
Don’t go out at night. There are several ways to play solitaire.
If all this does not heal you, do what you want.
“With the dearth of life …”
“There is no such dearth.”
“Attached to the flu…”
“There is no such flu.”
“And to the President’s policy?…”
“There is no such President.”
(Caras y caretas, Buenos Aires, 1919)
From an advertisement for a potion produced by Guyot: “Everyone knows that bad microbes are the cause of almost all of our major diseases: tuberculosis, influenza, diphtheria, typhoid fever, meningitis, cholera, plague, tetanus, etc.” (Am I the only one who sees some Miró here?)
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1919)
Banishing the demons in this advertisement by Bayer in Rio de Janeiro during the Spanish flu epidemic. “Undoubtedly, modern Medical Science, thanks to its surprising progress, knows how to successfully conjure away these horrible specters…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1919)
And in a similar vein:
Politics-as-contagion is low-hanging fruit, to be sure, but this Finnish cartoon still warrants preservation.
Russian (fast asleep): “Lenin… Trotsky… Amen… hrrr — hrrr! …”
German: “A million spawn! … I wouldn’t have thought they would cling to me either! …”
John Bull (to Mrs. France): “The devil take you all! If I had known about this, I would have stayed at home.”
Uncle Sam: “First I tried to get rid of them with a Browning, now I’ll try with dollars! …”
(Tuulispää, Helsinki, 1919)
Marianne [the French Republic]: “Here, my dear, may I present you with the peace child. Wilson’s Fourteen Points has brought it well reckoned into the world.”
[Baron] v. Brockdorff [first foreign minister of the Weimer Republic]: “Nope, the child has the pox.”
(Der wahre Jacob, Stuttgart, 1919)
Young Europe: “Hopefully there are nicer toys in the new boxes than in the old ones [war, influenza, Bolsheviks].”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1919)
(Punch, London, 1919)
Clerk: “What do you want?”
Orientalized crone: “To register.”
“What have you done to that end?”
“Nothing else! I’m just Malaria and it does say in the newspapers that the Bundesrat has decided to extend the change-of-residence obligation to Malaria, too!”
“What is your first name? How old are you? Are you married? Vaccinated? Divorced? You have to fill out everything here; then we’ll see!”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1919)
There was no immunity from tortuous puns during the great influenza pandemic.
“It seems a man was found dead; he was clutching at the espagnolette (window fastening) of his window.”
“No doubt about it: it was the Spanish flu.”
(Le Pêle-mêle, Paris, 1919)
“If you’re that sick, don’t call me, I don’t want to catch your flu! …”
(Le Pêle-mêle, France, 1919) (For the 5G conspiracy theorists.)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 