Tag: Iconography of Contagion

Medical Library’s Contagious Exhibit Sure To Go Viral

She may be…a bag of TROUBLE. Syphilis – Gonorrhea.U.S. Public Health Service,United States, 1940s.Photomechanical print: color; 41 x 51 cm. Artist: "Christian."A sultry, heavily-made-up woman squints provocatively, while smoking a cigarette. WWII posters usually addressed men, and fingered promiscuous women as the source of contagion.They are an unholy alliance of science, art, medicine, politics, history, advertising, and propaganda. Dramatic images use visual shorthand to convey danger, disease, and death. Shadows, crowds, skeletons, vermin, blob-like micro-organisms, and sinister sick-o's threaten innocent men, women, and children. But these aren't posters for grindhouse horror flicks from the fabulous 50's. They're government issue placards...

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