The seven plagues of Egypt

Two panels of six. The other plagues listed are the asphalt inferno of cars in Rio, water shortages, food prices, and the endless riots of republicans and monarchists.

The bubonic plague. Terrible illness that intends to occupy the space formerly occupied by yellow fever.
With the great public health surveys that have been carried out, and the great preventive efforts that have gained universal fame, this terrible visitation that is breaking out in so many points of the city is surprising.

The dust. A true gift from the Greek who forced us into the City Hall with its ground-sand paving!
It is a delight to breathe this myriad of microbes that roam in the air, stimulated by automobiles and trams!

The police station has its reasons

(Complaints have been published not only against the delay in the delivery of correspondence, but also against the violation of letters.)
Lady: “An open letter! I don’t get it! I have no secrets, but I think this is an abuse!”
Postman: “Now, “madame”! Accept the letter! If it is from Europe, don’t you know that everything there is in conflict?… And if it is from here, don’t you know that it is necessary to air the correspondence, because of the mosquitoes and typhus…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1916)

Whistling!

(Newspapers are reporting that the cost of living in Brazil is calamitous, afflicting the poor classes.)
Joe Public: “Look, gentlemen, we are reduced by protectionism, which favors a false national industry. Here are the consumers of tuberculosis. Imagine what the descendants of such a race will look like! The people are positively dying of hunger, they are already on the path of despair.”
(Various officials give mealy-mouthed excuses…)
Republican Senator for São Paulo and former agriculture minister Francisco Glicério: “And in the face of spectacles like this, I will not repeat that this is not the Republic of my dreams!”
Joe Public: “Nor mine. Republic of dreamers is what this is, the Republic of talkers. Some are eaters, the rest are fasters. Republic of doctors!”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

The new… offensive of the Spanish flu

…and the heroic resistance of the public health authorities.
“Go away! Don’t go in here!”
(Il Pasquino Coloniale, São Paulo, 1920)

Measures of the authorities regarding the threatened return of the “Spanish”

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

Brilliant ideas

(The Brazilian Public Health Service resolves to send its delegates to hold conferences among workers in factories and offices as a means of combating tuberculosis.)

To be a worker and married are practically synonymous! A worker cannot be understood without having a wife and at least four or five children. Currently earning what he earned five years ago, while at the same time the cost of housing and goods is of necessity going up, quadrupling in value, a poor devil who earns $6-10 a day has to live in a shed without hygiene of any kind and eat bread kneaded by the devil…

But… Hygiene thinks it has discovered “bread honey” by developing its theories for factories and offices in solemn rhetoric against tuberculosis.
What will these doctors say to the workers? This: look for good, comfortable and airy rooms; Have a good time, eating well; rest three months a year in Poços de Caldas [spa city north of São Paulo], etc… etc…
Doubt it? Go attend these conferences.
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1913)

The man who turned into a microbe

(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1928)
Dr. Karrapatoff discovered the way to breed microbes in order to study them.

After difficult and complicated experiments, he solved the problem with just one drug.

Microbes of gigantic proportions emerged, true monsters.

The roles are reversed, the microbe swallows the man, who gets so small that he becomes a microman. (magnified 200 diameters)

The microbes do microscopic research to discover the microman in their organism. The microbes are being attacked by various diseases.

Several specialists are called in to tackle the epidemics caused by the spread of the microman in the organism of the microbes – humanity is avenged.

Believe it or not

Detail from Storni’s “Believe it or not” feature, where a creature labeled “Flu” is being fed a sack of money. “A sum of one thousand contos was voted to meet the outbreak of influenza, even at the end of the epidemic.
Now the evil will increase… so long as there is money!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1935)

Progress in travel

Car-shower, vehicle against heat and against alcoholism (it allows riding in the rain without drinking). The runoff will irrigate the streets along the way, stopping the dust, a use that makes the car-shower the best auxiliary of the Anti-Tuberculosis League and, mainly, of City Hall…
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1907)

Weekly show: Danse macabre

Synthesis of weekly public health newsletters…
A thrill of horror passes through Joe Public’s spine, seeing every week this danse macabre, touched by the inexorable Cape!…
And the one who also senses the consumption in his pockets, seems to exclaim:
“Good God, how long will I have to wait for these so-called Hygiene measures against this terrible specter that also makes me dance on the tightrope?!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1914)

Public schools

(Detail from “Salad of the Week”) “Discussions and opinions on the hygienic inspection of schools continue; but, like all the serious assumptions of this country, they never go beyond the theoretical and verbose terrain, and it is likely that this will also be seen now… How many adjuncts, teachers and students do not drag an existence already reached by tuberculosis, living in a criminal promiscuity!… Why not take an energetic decision to avoid a greater harm?”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1911)

“High” cloud appears that sometimes darkens over our heads

(The press is discussing whether a new invasion of mosquitoes could lead to a recurrence of yellow fever.)
(Cloud of mosquitoes labeled “yellow fever,” “purple,” “green,” “blue,” “etc.”)
City of Rio: “Go away, long-legged bandits! Go away, damn vehicles of fevers of all colors! Go away!”
Dr. Seidl: “Don’t be so scared, madame! Here I am armed to the teeth against this horde of mosquitoes!”
Joe Public: “Hey, doc, the lady is right! You can have a lot of strength and a lot of goodwill, but… a swallow just doesn’t make summer! Against this cloud, which darkens the air and appears over our heads, I see only one remedy: the replacement of the strategic killer-mosquito brigade. Are there not so many others here? Because this is useful!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

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)

Get back, worm!

(Employing a polite version of the caption.) (The captain of a steamship from Bahia has died of yellow fever. The captain’s wife is quarantined at a local hospital. These facts greatly impressed the public spirit, which was startled by the threat of the invasion of yellow evil.)
Yellow fever: “Make yourself comfortable! This is the paradise of professional freedom!…”
Joe Public (small lecture to officials culminating in:) “Come on, gentlemen! A little energy, against the greatest enemy of our land!”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

Dysentery in Rio

The cause of the epidemic was found to be in poor food. The specter of evil lives there at the point of sale, where the customer is only a question of money and not the belly.
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)