(La Revista da semana, Rio de Janeiro, 1900) (While I can’t capture the idiom, the point of the cartoon is clear. There are similar flu-related cartoons in Czech and Hungarian versions.)
The first creditor appears on the stairs,… Another comes up, and another…
Brazilian plague cartoon
…yet another,… finally dozens They knock on Casusa’s door, “a bloody fresh band at dawn.” Casusa arrives at the door, burning in [illegible]. And he says to the people in a very stern tone, “I have bubonic plague around the house.”
O Malho [The Sledgehammer] (solemnly, to Joe Public): “Drawing your attention to the Bastille of Routine, I celebrate in the best possible way the great date of the French Revolution and the date of my second centenary! Those five diggers [with public health official Oswaldo Cruz on the right, holding a syringe] have already demolished a lot, but there is still a lot to do… Down with any remaining attachment to the status quo!” Joe Public: “Me as well! I want schools! I want housing for the poor! I want a steady fight against tuberculosis! … Let there be money!“ (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1906)
When the Indians revolted and did not want to give him supplies, Christopher Columbus told them that because of this, the sun would disappear. It was a stratagem; Colombo knew there was going to be an eclipse of the sun. When it started, the savages submitted and worshiped him…
Brazilian vaccination cartoon
And since in many things the people of today differ little from the savages of that time, Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, who only works for the good, can also employ a stratagem. The Hachette journal puts out an illustration showing that vaccinations in Paris are chic…
…put out the word to the up-to-date people of Botafogo [upscale beachfront neighborhood in Rio]. Soon there will not be enough vaccinators. The whole arroz aristocracy will make a real advance in the lancets of public health.
For the other popular classes in Rio: washerwomen, shysters, soldiers, innkeepers, Dr. Oswaldo will say that the “crum” [raw?] inoculated vaccine will give everyone the ability to foretell and enjoy good fortune in the numbers game [illegal gambling]… The vaccination posts will then be insufficient to contain the crowd of those agitating to get in…
“So you think that only the lack of vaccine is what causes the smallpox epidemic to explode, grow, and worsen? What! There is also a lack of cleanliness in the city. Have you noticed how the streets are, from Campo de Santa Anna upwards? It is dust, garbage, and stagnant water everywhere… I have never seen such mediocre service. At this point we’ve been walking backwards like the crab!…” “And City Hall?” “What City Hall?! …” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
Joe Public’s attitude as imagined by Mr. Oswaldo Costas Quentes, in view of the geniality of his German regulation… [Biologist and public health official Oswaldo Cruz is at the head of the spear pressing at the breast of Joe Public.]
Joe Public’s actual attitude Now please don’t toy with me! I don’t want to know about politics! I won’t have any instigators and I’m not scared of your antics! (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1904) (On the complicated politics of obligatory vaccination in Brazil, see also this cartoon.)
At the salon of Counselor Mumia: The poet Gadelha, after many requests, will recite a poem of his own (free!). In the second stanza, with tremors in her voice, she would gargle at him: “I escaped the black ISOLATION.”
“Isolation?!” (General stampede) (Revista da Semana, Rio de Janeiro, 1900)
Yellow fever, plague, and smallpox stand arrayed in chorus against public health in the person of Oswaldo Cruz, the biologist and government official most closely identified with Brazil’s efforts to introduce obligatory vaccination. (choir in the background) “If it weren’t for you getting in the way of our sinister steps, what a good harvest we would have made during the visit of the American fleet!” (Revista da Semana, Rio de Janeiro, 1908) (Compare Oswaldo Cruz’s iconic status in O Malho.)
(A scene in the Chamber) Brazilian parliamentary deputy, military officer, and sometime ally of the Church of Positivism Alexandre José Barbosa Lima: “Look, Mr. President! Our brothers, our wives, our children, fouled by vaccine, demoted to the role of guinea pigs! Misery! Protest! In the name of Comte, I positively must protest for all the juntas!” [“Junta” might simply mean “committee,” but Barbosa Lima ended up supporting the oligarchical politics which the Positivists had opposed.]
Brazilian smallpox cartoon
(Street scene, the cemetery entrance) Barbosa Lima: “Behold, the victims of a black epidemic arrive. There are so many! Finally, as the dead govern the living, it is always a comfort to be sure that we have many people to govern us… Peace to the dead! My sect [the Church of Positivism] is against the vaccine… and I find myself respectful of the consequences of its dogmas. Health and fraternity, oh! The dead are passing!” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1904) For more on the complicated politics of Positivist opposition to compulsory vaccination, see Robert Nachman.
Director of the Department of Public Health Oswaldo Cruz (wearing Public Health sash): “The vaccine kills the pigskins! It’s written in our books, it’s a proven fact! The goal of your positivism and your science in…” Mathematician, philosopher, and vaccination opponent Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (wearing Positivist sash): “The goal is yours, you slob! I’ll prove to you by A + B how it’s me who’s with the good of humanity!…” Joe Public: “Yes! keep arguing! Pick a fight about whether the line of the “footballer” is making your goals [victims], and fairly. In this three-month “match” there are already 2,432…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)
Newspaper reports: The director of Public Health and the director of the Vaccination Institute are engaged in the struggle to supply vaccines. Hygienist Dr. Carlos Seidl: “Your Excellency, Your Excellency, don’t disturb me in the smallpox war! Just provide vaccine…” Baron de Pedro Affonso: “Dr. Seidl, Dr. Seidl, don’t get involved in my business!” Rivadavia [uncertain who this figure is, unless it is historical metonymy for Argentina, which handled vaccination differently?]: “That’s right, Joe! Everything is out of joint! There shouldn’t be a fight when smallpox is threatening…” Joe Public: “What do you want? They gave His Excellency the vaccine monopoly… They put the vaccine up for negotiation…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1913)
Joe Public: “Just look at what is foresight and what is ignorance! All who vaccinate and revaccinate are clean and healthy against the black plague! All those who do not vaccinate themselves, out of ignorance, through negligence, or simply a spirit of opposition, or are marked for life or go dragging that sucker to the netherworld! Only those who have smallpox and want to die of it; that is, anyone who does not get vaccinated!” Smallpox: “Shut up, wretch! Do not tell these truths! Do not harm my death harvest!” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1914) (shaky on the idiom)
(The Brazilian League Against Tuberculosis, using the discovery of Calmette and Guérin [a French vaccine first introduced in 1921], will save newborn babies from the white plague.) Joachim Francisco de Assis Brasil (Brazilian politician who had played an important role in securing Amazonian borderlands to the Republic) and Francisco Antônio de Almeida Morato (Brazilian politician and founding figure of the Democratic Party this same year): “We bring you here the National Party in order to be protected against near or future consumption [TB].” Miguel Couto (Brazilian physician and politician) and Ataulfo de Paiva (magistrate, elite networker, and apparently at one point a figurehead in the Brazilian Academy of Sciences): “There’s no harm in experimenting. But if the disease is born, there will be no vaccine to cure it…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1927)
Whoever does nothing, sleeps; whoever sleeps, dreams; whoever dreams, is delirious; and… His Excellency has got “encephalitis lethargica.” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1920)
(Newspapers are reporting that with cases of yellow fever on board a steamer coming from Bahia to Rio Grande do Sul, the former mosquito-killer brigade service was partially restored.) Mosquito killer: “What!… Are you here again?!” Yellow fever: “I’m just passing through, to kill… I miss you… But if you want, I can do you a favor…” Mosquito killer: “A favor!… What?…” Yellow fever: “Staying in Rio de Janeiro for a while, in order to give you and your companions a farewell to the brigade… The health authorities only remember me when I am present, and after all you also need to kill… hunger! I have a good heart and I can come here from time to time to keep the “sacred fire” of prevention!…” (O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 