Danse macabre

As the Doctor-Senator War comes to an end,
The Asian contagion is carousing merrily.
“Female and male bacilli, let’s get dancing!
Rise up, comma-bacilli, Dr. Oláh* urges them!
Good Cholera Morbus is no longer an orphan!”
Crazy Danse Macabre runs the length of the capital,
Oláh is already skipping out, leaving the Wallachians** there.
What has been decreed remains on paper.
Doing whatever they do, they reason wisely:
“The pest will disappear, they’re sheep if they run out!”
(*Presumably Gyula Oláh, physician, public health figure, and former parliamentarian)
(**Punning on Oláh’s name, which could also mean a derogatory term for Romanians.)
(Bolond Istók, Budapest, 1886)

Business slump

These two cartoons were published in quick succession as the cholera epidemic worsened in 1892, first in May in Germany, then in July in Hungary. Note what the Hungarian version leaves out, though it is nearly a copy of the German original.

Mars & Co. Arms Dealers: “Darn it! Nothing is moving off the shelves, all my customers are leaving me in the lurch. It’s simply because of these accursed city travelers who are ruining a perfectly solid retail enterprise with their running around.”
(Kladderadatsch, Berlin, 1892)

Mars & Co. Arms Dealers: “Well, I declare! My wares are rusting around my neck, old customers are staying away, but these peddlers in mourning clothes come and ruin the old solid business!”
(Borsszem Jankó, Budapest, 1892)

The new bacterium

“What a marvelous thing! Three young Hungarian medical scientists have discovered a new bacterium! The famine-typhus bacterium!”
“How can you be happy about this!? Aren’t there already enough bacteria!?”
(Kakas Marton, Budapest, 1908)

Two bacteria in conversation

“Say, Mr. Cholera, do you listen to Western radio?”
“No.”
“Well, then, how do you want to infect yourself?”
(Pesti Izé, Budapest, 1948)

Cholera

France: “I caught the Chinaman, but he didn’t let go.”
(Borsszem Jankó, Budapest, 1884)

At an American germ warfare facility

American bacteriologist (holding up flask of plague): “You know what, colleague, we are really striving to transform nature…”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1951)

Read carefully

“Where did you get the flu contagion?”
“I caught a chill while I was reading all the way to the end of the official poster about how to protect yourself.”
(Az Ojság, Budapest, 1927)

In Naples

Cholera: “May I come in?”
King: “You may! Everyone is at liberty! I’m not only king, I’m a human. Over here, if you like.”
Cholera: “That’s all I wanted to know! (Turns around and does not bother the king.)
(Bolond Istók, Budapest, 1884)

Cholera morbus rebuffed

Cholera: Millions of bacteria and miasma! Here come the shearers and wormeaters! Loathsome! I want nothing to do with it. Right back to Asia!…
(Bolond Istók, Budapest, 1886)

Measles

“Where do you get that there’s an epidemic?”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1989)

Influenza times

“Mr. Smith, which theater are you heading to cough?”
(Ludas Matyi, Budapest, 1958)

Fumigation chamber

Image of a fumigation chamber used in Geneva during the cholera pandemic as it spread in 1884.
(Vasarnapi Ujság, Budapest, 1884)

Safety measures against the spread of the Spanish flu

Avoid the tram; get spritzed at the office; smoke to protect yourself (!); be cautious, carry supply of lime, carbolic acid, lysol; defend yourself using the epidemic, proclaim yourself infectious when the bill collector shows up.
(Borsszem Jankó, Budapest, 1918)

Hungarian disinfection procedure

…against the further spread of cholera. (“Denial sprays” are being applied against cholera.)
(Kikeriki, Vienna, 1910)

Achoo!

“How a cunning Pest resident gets his hands on a theater ticket.” (Man sneezes at the ticket office and the crowd scatters. This was at the height of the influenza epidemic.)
(Borsszem Jankó, Budapest, 1918)