A wearying chase

(Note the misplaced use of a vector for influenza.)
(Evening Herald, Dublin, 1929; from the Gordon Brewster Cartoon Collection, National Library of Ireland.)

Man attacked by the flu

(Svari, Riga, 1929)

Flu!

Don’t shake hands
Don’t cough near one another
Disinfect
Eat properly
(Postimees, Tartu, 1929)

Watch out for the flu

(Le Journal amusant, Paris, 1929) (French stereotypes are alive and well here.)

The flu is waning … beware!
The work of the anti-drip on the nose warns you against the gallants suffering from coryza.

The flu germs are transmitted by the mouth. Detestable, these supplies of mouth.

Always carry a vaporizer to clean your larynx and nasal passages.

Avoid people who sputter. Use a protective screen.

If you must sleep with someone who has the flu, demand that he wear a protective mask.

Hot drinks, strongly alcoholic, are recommended. A good meal is a sovereign remedy.

Put a good hot water bottle in your bed. Keep your stomach warm.

Fight against the nervous breakdown which follows a flu attack through gymnastic exercises broken by long rests.

Local trek

“You mean your father has sleeping sickness, too? Was he in the tropics?”
“Nope, at the municipal authorities!”
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1929)

The flu

“Please, just hold out your hand!”
(Ulk, Berlin, 1929)

In a doctor’s family

“You should be ashamed to be afraid of the dark, Pete!”
“But papa’s a grownup and he says he won’t go to the countryside! There’s such darkness there!”
(Chudak, Moscow, 1929)

Businessman to the end

The stockbroker is seriously ill. His wife is at the bedside and anxiously asks the nurse how high the fever is.
“39.9 Celsius,” says the nurse.
Then the patient whispers: “When you get up to 40 C, sell immediately!”
(Tuulispää, Helsinki, 1929) (Not necessarily flu-related, but plausibly so.)

The most miserable

“My wife has had the flu.”
“Well, mine has had two creatures, which is even worse!”
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1929)

The flu

“No one can warm up the room better in this cold than I can!”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1929)

Interpretations

Chief of prevention: “Let’s put a lid on this thing! This, with the addition of rainwater, becomes a site for larvae that, after their biological evolution, become yellow-fever-bearing mosquitos transmitting jaundice-related typhus.”
Municipal worker: “So this lady of yours is very much mistaken. This here is a hole.”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1929)

Farewell

Spring of 1929. What will your farewell gift be?
Winter of 1929. Two plagues: the flu in the air and the opposition in the Sejm.
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1929)

The flu and marriage

“Are you unhappy in your marriage, Ido? Doesn’t your doctor husband love you?”
“He loves me, but consider: Our wedding was in January, and we’ve seen each other three times since then. The rest of the time he’s with his patients…!”
(Humoristické listy, Prague, 1929)

Immune

(For devotees of Bruno Latour) “I’m continually pleased by your stable health! How do you actually do it?”
“Yes, you see, when I was born, no bacteria at all had been discovered yet!”
(Der wahre Jacob, Stuttgart, 1929)

The front line

Country lady: “Could the good pastor come to my husband? He is very sick.”
Pastor: “Sadly, I don’t have time to come myself, but I’ll send my assistant.”
Lady: “Dear pastor, don’t do that, it would be a shame to have an assistant who is young and beautiful, because my husband has smallpox!”
(Tuulispää, Helsinki, 1929)