Tag: Swiss

Red East Bloc landscape in danger

It’s an easy political metaphor unconnected to an actual epidemic, but let’s catalogue it anyway. “The open outbreak of the contagion of insubordination in Poland, recognizable by the poisonous pustules of suspiciously white color, has unleashed deep concern about Western infection among the surrounding fraternal nations. Energetic isolation and disinfection measures are underway.”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1980)

Very likely!

This was published shortly before the Chicago World’s Fair opened in 1893.
Brother Jonathan [the icon did not fully stabilize under “Uncle Sam” until World War I]: “Don’t be angry with me, dear immigrants, for having you fumigated so severely as you enter America. Right now cholera is the excuse, but then it will improve during the exhibition in Chicago!”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1892)

Swiss cholera cartoon

Congress of Swiss naturalists in Gotthard

This cartoon depicts Swiss naturalists on a field trip to nearby caves during their annual congress in 1875. The caption pretends to report from the proceedings: “Even in Gotthard we were received extremely courteously; the bones found, tools of all kinds, etc. obviously belong to the Bronze Age.” The iconic Darwin, shown holding a bone, surely did not attend, but the man behind him strongly resembles Arnold Dodel (albeit unduly gray), the botanist who was his strongest ally in Switzerland. The source of amusement for present purposes would be the gnome on the right spritzing the naturalists with disinfectant. (Scroll down for detail.) Switzerland had not been spared during the upsurge of cholera less than two years earlier…
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1875)

Swiss naturalists in Gotthard

It just depends!

Husband: “Dear wife! Education is easy and it is difficult. In the present case I would advise you not to tell the children “If you love uncleanliness, that’s how cholera comes,” but rather just to say: “If you are clean, then cholera doesn’t come!” That would suffice everywhere for a bit of sense, and fear and terror would be over.”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1883)

Swiss cholera cartoon

From the time of cholera

Doctor: “Bad news, Mr. Meier. I’ve just come from your friend — he has passed away!”
Mr. Meier: “What are you saying! But tell me, Doctor, his constant fear in life was that he would someday be buried alive. Is he really dead?”
Doctor: “Dead?! How can you doubt it if I am affirming it. I’m telling you, once I’ve had one of them in treatment, then I know that he’s dead, too.”
(Appenzeller Kalender, Zurich, 1855)

Swiss cholera cartoon

Bummelzug

Such a marvelous idiom: Bummelzug, “boomelzoog,” the slow train that stops at every last station along the way. Here a pitiful little provincial station with terrible facilities posts a sign, “Please keep clean.” The caption then reads: “Important rule in the battle against epidemic diseases (salmonella, typhus, dysentery): Thorough hand-washing after every visit to the restroom!” Which prompts the rhyme (in German):

Whoever wants to comply with this rule,
He’ll never be traveling on slow trains!

Draw appropriate hygienic conclusions.
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1966)

Swiss hygiene cartoon

Social misery transcended

A physician injecting small quantities of meat extract: “Since we can now inoculate away via its own poison, not only smallpox, but also cholera, typhus, consumption, brain inflammation, in short, all bad diseases, we simply proceed in the same manner with hunger, thirst, and lack of money, inoculate it away via the corresponding medium and — who would deny it? — the social question is solved.”
(Nebelspalter, Zurich, 1885)

Swiss cholera smallpox tuberculosis typhus cartoon

For sanitary reasons

Presiding magistrate: “You are accused of stealing silver spoons. Can you offer any extenuating circumstances?”
Accused: “Yes. I did it for sanitary reasons.”
Presiding magistrate: “For sanitary reasons?”
Accused: “Because of the cholera. I had a cholera concoction made for myself, and the doctor said that it would be effective only if I took a tablespoon every two hours. And that’s what I did.”
(Appenzeller Kalender, Zurich, 1877)

Swiss cholera cartoon