Shrieking microbes

“Tell me, doctor, why does water make noise when falling into fire?”
“Microbes that shriek when burned!”
(Buen Humor, Madrid, 1925)

The flu epidemic in England

The man who sneezed in the railway compartment.
(De Sumatra post, 1925) (Compare these Hungarian and Czech variants.)

His Majesty the Bedbug

Scratching his fetid belly
Adorning his forehead with a crown
He strides with a hairy paw
His Majesty the Bedbug.
(Krokodil no. 41, Moscow, 1925)

Or in the same vein: “Inseparable friends. Hymn to the bedbug.”
“We’ll never part with you,
not for anything in the world!”
(Krokodil no. 1, Moscow, 1932)

Krokodil’s harmless caricatures

Malarial mosquito (gazing in horror at People’s Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko): “Here is a harmful insect! One of its stings’ll cost you.”
(Krokodil, Moscow, 1925)

Unhealthy spirit in a healthy body

(A gang has been uncovered that is faking certificates of illness for obtaining health insurance benefits.)
“What? You have tuberculosis? But do you know how much tuberculosis costs now? Better you should have a stomach ulcer. For yours–get well soon!”
(Krokodil, Moscow, 1925)