Skip Navigation Bar
Banner for An Iconography of Contagion.

Text Images

Man-Made Malaria. 6 mosquitoes in 10 breed in water in unnecessary ruts, abandoned roads, blocked ditches, fox and shell holes. U.S. Navy, Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, U.S. Government Printing Office, United States, 1945. Here, an anopheles mosquito is given the stereotypical features of the Japanese enemy and has the rising sun of the Japanese imperial flag on his wings.

Man-Made Malaria. 6 mosquitoes in 10 breed in water in unnecessary ruts, abandoned roads, blocked ditches, fox and shell holes.
U.S. Navy, Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, U.S. Government Printing Office, United States, 1945.
Photomechanical print: color; 21 x 23 cm.

War-time U.S. military health campaigns often conflated the Japanese enemy with disease-carrying flies and mosquitoes. Here, an anopheles mosquito is given the stereotypical features of the Japanese enemy and has the rising sun of the Japanese imperial flag on his wings.

Mosquitos icon Military enemies icon
When a fly wipes his feet on your food, he’s spreading disease. War Department, U.S. Government Printing Office, United States, 1944.

When a fly wipes his feet on your food, he’s spreading disease!
War Department, U.S. Government Printing Office, United States, 1944. Photomechanical print: color; 36 x 51 cm. Artist: Vernon Grant (1902-1990).

During the war, anti-fly health campaigns linked the insects to outbreaks of dysentery and other infectious diseases. The caption below reads: “Never give a germ a break.”

Flies icon Insects icon

Page 10 of 11    Black arrow pointing to the left   Black arrow pointing to the right