Hygienic measures against typhus

City official: “Come on, look lively!… Here are the sanitary instructions.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1914)

The hygienists and Dato

Eduardo Dato Iradier was a Spanish Conservative politician and prime minister at the time of this cartoon.
Hygienists: “We are ready to attack typhus here in Spain.”
Dato: “That’s really good; but don’t attack it too much… Think about our neutrality.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1914)

Typhus, or, everyone teaches that it’s you

Conservative Spanish politician Antonio Maura: “You see, we have also established the Attraction of Foreigners in Madrid. And as a start, we offer you this number.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1909) (Idiom and context need improvement here.)

Starting to wrap up the feast

It seems to me that I have sharpened the tool quite unnecessarily. These people are already so used to everything that microbes go in one ear and come out the other.
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1911)

There is no harm in not coming for good

Alas, the flu of my soul! If it weren’t for you being too ugly, I would even kiss you. (Interments, wills, funerals enriching the Church during the pandemic.)
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1918)

The past seems to remain

A future Asian invasion? We still haven’t had enough of the flu, hasn’t she become the mistress of our house?
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1927)

Pick your poison

(Conservative politician Antonio Maura): “Hala, Spain, choose. Who do you love coming here more? Cholera or me?”
Spain: “Cholera.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1911) (Note the visual pun on Cholera’s smock, the “comma bacillus.”)

Cholera and public opinion

“I think you’re very scared of me, in Spain…, right?”
“You see: if you knew how to make a good choice, we would still declare you national glory.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1911)

The two calamities

The Pope to Cholera: “You go to Spain, and since they don’t want to listen to me, let’s see if they will pay more attention to you.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1910)

The Pope on a Vatican spire is not so odd once you’ve seen this cartoon of the first radio transmitter installed in the Vatican. (L’Asino, Rome, 1908)

Cholera in Russia

“We could play a game, Nicolas. Between you and me, let’s see who will kill more people.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1908)

The triumph of conservative cholera

And similarly here. (La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1884) (This wants more political context than I am prepared to provide.)

Asiatic cholera and “our” cholera

Asiatic: He enters Alicante by paying 25 pesetas.
And Catalonia for free, in the pockets of two friars.
“Ours”: Enrollments. Purchase of espadrilles. Symptoms. Cases. Remedy.
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1884)

Amour-propre

Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo: “May I know the reason for your visit?”
Cholera: “You will see; it is a matter of amour-propre. I came to prove to you that I don’t let you run my hand over your face.”
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1884) (Surely I don’t have the idiom quite right.)