One of the connoisseurs at Márton Hosszu’s exhibition [where various Spanish objects are on display. Hosszu (b. 1894) had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Spain. The picture in front of the rotund man is labeled “Spanish flu.”]
“Amazingly, the press already announced the completion of these images in the spring and they still haven’t dried.”
(Vágóhíd, Kolozsvár-Cluj, 1926)
The first health week will take place in Latvia, October 10-17.
A fight broke out between the sick fund [health service] and other doctors. A doctor’s strike is expected.
Bacillus 1: “Isn’t it crazy: even doctors are against us?! Strikes and what do we do then?”
Bacillus 2: “Let’s take care of our health. For that we already have a health week!…”
(Svari, Riga, 1926)
(Lachen links, Berlin, 1926)
Mixes up simple numbers–telephone operator.
Opens mouth up to 42 cm–people’s representative.
Keeps looking eastward–communist party secretary.
Has an unusually hard posterior–defense minister.
Suffers from chronic sleeping sickness, awakes only as the office is closing–office worker.
Buckles his belt to the last hole–worker.
“But don’t you know that you can’t come in here with a short haircut?”
“I can if I’ve had typhus.”
(Buen Humor, Madrid, 1926)
Make sure you’ve understood, Marie: I have encephalitis lethargica; you will not make any wake-up calls until after the end of the holiday season.
(Le Siècle, 1926)
In hypnosis Lachen links [~ “laughing on the left”] is making the most epochal discoveries. Thus the pathogens of the following illnesses are discovered:
Nine panels follow, of which I include three here. Sleeping sickness:
Hunger typhus [“tariff” vibrios]:
Judicial cholera:
(Lachen links, Berlin, 1926)
“Little girl! Please don’t touch the doggie! You might still infect her with something!”
(Krokodil, Moscow, 1926)
(Smallpox, typhus, and measles are still among us, which have been full of pleasantries.) (?)
Marcolino: “Dr. Carlos Chagas [discoverer of the eponymous disease, AKA trypanosomiasis] shouldn’t be going to Europe now.”
Mr. Mosquito: “And; the sanitary state of the city demands his presence and a lot of work.”
“I’m not lacking for that. And in Europe, the ship on which he travels can be “interdicted”…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1926) (This translation clearly wants improvement.)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 