Sure agent

Early in 1927 influenza was resurgent in the Danube region. A young Otto von Habsburg, the nominal king of Hungary then in Spanish exile, contracted pneumonia after a bout of the flu, which was still frequently referred to as the “Spanish epidemic” in Hungarian. King Ferdinand of Romania caught the flu as well, unsettling domestic politics. The previous year, Ferdinand has been instrumental in returning General Alexandru Averescu to the premiership as head of the People’s Party. Averescu proceeded to cozy up with Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. Several months after the appearance of this cartoon, Ferdinand would die from what turned out to be cancer, but not before helping unseat Averescu.

Averescu: “It worked with the Hungarian, maybe it will work with the “Spanish” as well.”
(Vágóhid, Kolozsvár-Cluj, 1927)

Measures against cholera

Vasile Morţun [Romanian politician and writer]. And with that phrase we end the circular. Continuing, Mr. Copyist:
“Therefore, the mayors of rural communities are invited to take emergency measures to combat cholera, whose so-called comma-bacillus is currently wreaking havoc in neighboring countries.”
The mayor of Pelagroșii de Jos. “Stan Poşircă, why don’t you take the paper back and go to hell with it! Do you want to fill the village with cholera?”
“Me, Mr. Mayor ?!”
“You and your petition that has more than 14 commas: I counted them myself!”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1910)

Consumer League and… hygiene

(Various anti-venereal medications like Salvarsan are advertised on the wall. It appears that the prices of young women offering their services are printed on their dresses.)
“Uncle Ghiță, bravo: the League did well because their prices dropped. Please continue!”
“But what do you use: I see you, old man.”
“I will profit more, because I will gain from them and their customers: I am a pharmacist!”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1919)

A hygiene thing

(Although the war is over, bloody battles are taking place in Russia every day.)
St. Peter: “Woman, where do you want to come like that?… Wipe your feet well: don’t you see what prints you leave?”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1919)

A new occupation

“Where did you go, Cholera?”
“I’m on the move in the winter, all-powerful.”
“But those who follow you, who are they?”
“Porters carrying my luggage.”
“Porters?!”
“Of course!… These are ‘vibrio carriers’!”
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1911) (Another in the ongoing clystère theme.)

Autumn jollities

(Cholera continues to spread in the country.)
Harvesting vineyards
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1911)

A new cartel

Dear Cholera, I am convinced that only you would be able to reach Pantelimon; please grant me the concession, and in return I promise to order Dr. Bărdescu to take all possible public health measures in the summer to facilitate a pleasant holiday in Romanian hospitals.
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1911)

Safe remedy

“Good grief, doctor, if the water has microbes, the brandy has microbes, the wine has microbes, then what am I to drink so as not to get cholera?”
“Vitriol, Mr. Popescu!” (This might be theater producer Leon Popescu, but I honestly don’t know.)
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1911)

Variations on the same model

(Strong measures have been taken to prevent plague and cholera from entering the country.)
“O my God! plague… look, it’s plague!!”
“Iencuțu, don’t you know me anymore?… it’s me, Mother Smara!…”
(A dig at Smaranda Gheorghiu, a Romanian writer and feminist from a noble landowning family who frequently traveled abroad and sometimes published under the moniker “Mother Smara.”)
(Furnica, Bucharest, 1908)