Season of heat and… harvest

In the winter with humidity, in summer with the oppressive sun, here it is always making its terrible harvest!
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1911)

Globéol reconstitutes the nervous system

This Brazilian advertisement is a bit distant from our pandemic concerns, but we’ll include on a technicality. In addition to the many nervous ailments it is purported to fight, Globéol also claims to have benefits for tuberculosis. Need we dwell on the horrific brain image?
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1914)

Bahia exports

(It has been verified that the yellow fever patients admitted to the isolation ward are all from Bahia.)
“This is what the relaxation of the Bahia government is exporting to Rio de Janeiro, associated with the sheer (?) disability of its Hygiene” (i.e., public health organizations).
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1914)

How many?…

“How many victims has the epidemic caused?”
“About ten thousand…”
THE VOICE OF SOMEONE TRAPPED IN A COFFIN: “As for those who did not die…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918)

Beware of epidemics!

Contagion: “As Minister Plenipotentiary of the Emperor of Infection, I respectfully come forward to present my credentials with the hope that you will want to reestablish the old friendly relations, so unsuccessfully interrupted by the diplomacy of Hygiene. Lady Hygiene having died for lack of care, I do not doubt that our old friendship is now resumed.”

Rio’s poor: “Misericordia! The ambassadors of death are already at the door! [tuberculosis, mendicancy, plague, yellow fever, fake milk, cholera] What kind of diplomacy should I adopt now to drive out such a dangerous band? I will scream and complain at the top of my lungs before tuberculosis destroys us: To arms!”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1912)

Second dose?

(Some institutes are requesting examinations by decree, to commemorate the centenary of the Brazilian War of Independence)
“I became a sweet talker during the epidemic, and now I miss the little decree exams!”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1922)

On the street

“How about the benefit concert for the Leagues against Tuberculosis of Brazil and Portugal?”
“Splendid! I’ve never seen a party of its like here!”
“???!!!…”
“I’m not exaggerating! Tuberculosis has never been treated here… by music…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1907)

Savings…

“Ignacio, all six of them are sick with scarlet fever, flu, smallpox, whooping cough, typhus, and choler!”
“Don’t be scared, “girl,” go and “call” the doctor. For six he’ll make a discount, but ask for a prescription just for everyone and the discount that the pharmacist promised.”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1927)

Experienced in the spread of diseases

An especially evocative Brazilian ad for insecticides against epidemic disease insects.
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1928)

Diagnosis

“Is it really the “Spanish,” doctor?”
“No, my son, it’s the “juice epidemic,” you’re sensing the smell of sweat.”
“Good heavens, doctor, won’t it be … cholera morbus?”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1918) (Definitely missed some wordplay here…something about “vulgar death”?)

The plague at our borders

Cholera, yellow fever, bubonic plague… Liberated!… What terrifying rumors!!! Let us now try D. (?) hygiene, to defend our borders and our skins, because if we do not do this, we guarantee that it will not be Italy that comes to do it.
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1911)

Brazilian cholera yellow fever plague cartoon

The dust of modern Rio!

First two panels:
(Image of a plate of Carioca dust [flour] with typhus, tuberculosis, yellow fever, smallpox, plague, gastroenteritis, etc. “Carioca” is a way of referring to the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro.)
“We knew the dust of Persia, we knew gold dust, monkey dust and Joanna dust, the river Po [“pó” meaning dust], etc., but… we are completely unaware of this new dust that invades us, suffocates us, and that kills us: the dust from Rio de Janeiro.”

Deathly figure: “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return…”
“We know perfectly well that we are dust and that we shall become dust, but that does not mean that we have to feed on dust while we are alive…”
(and four more panels of quirky municipal politics…)
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1911)

The laughter of death

(4500 deaths to date from smallpox)
Penna: “How horrible!!…”
Mayor: “How horrible!”
Joe Public: “This is it! An epidemic that could have been vanquished perfectly well in the beginning, six months ago, when it killed 20 people a month; that it was not on a whim or relaxation and that now it laughs at those responsible!… I don’t know what I pay for these taxes that flay me! Perhaps for this: to see the people who govern me dumbfounded!”
Oswaldo Cruz: “Without mandatory vaccines, I can do nothing!…”
Smallpox: “Nothing, huh? Hahaha!!!…”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1908)

Which is the cleanest and healthiest country?

Detail from “Salad of the week”: “Say now: which is the cleanest and healthiest country? As for Europe, the great cholera epidemic that is raging there, incidentally, occurs every year. We are now the ones who have to guard against the steamer lines that were putting up posters on the streets of Buenos Aires a few years ago with the following words (in Italian): Steam ahead for Genoa and Naples on the Umberto I, without touching Brazil.
There’s nothing like one day after the other!”
(O Malho, Rio de Janeiro, 1911)

The iconic Oswaldo Cruz

I lack the Portuguese knowledge to translate all these cartoons in full, but in this post I just want to highlight the iconic status of bacteriologist and public health leader Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1917). For an avowedly secular publication like O Malho, Cruz as the standard-bearer of modern medicine clearly exerted tremendous appeal, though of course its satire often drew attention to the many obstacles in the way of achieving his aims.
(Each image links to the appropriate issue.)

Vaccine-mandate war!… (1904)

The journey of the mosquito czar. Reception in Victoria (1905)

Journey of the mosquito czar — arrival in Bahia (1905)

Essential cleaning (1907)

One more broom… (1907)

Cruz in provincial Pará (1910)

In Pará: Mosquito plague does not kill Governor Coelho (1911)

Federal intervention in Ceara (1914)

At the Pharoux Quay: The messiah of consumption (1908)

The great magician… of coincidences

Roping it in time (1908)

The challenge of tuberculosis (1906)

Plagues on the go (1907)

See also this multi-panel cartoon from 1905. And another from 1908. And a marvelous color cartoon from 1907. And this vaccination cartoon from 1904. Ditto.