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  REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PASTEUR

Pasteur Institutes USA

Pasteur Memorials USA

 

Centerfold from Judge: A Political Cartoon of President Cleveland depicted as Louis Pasteur inoculating goverment against the spoils system

T. Bernhard Gillam’s Rare Political Cartoon published in Judge, February 20, 1886

T. Bernhard Gilliam cartooned this centerfold entitled, “Judge’s Wax Works – The Political Eden Musée.” While not actually depicted, Louis Pasteur is present in spirit in this wonderful image from the American satirical review, Judge, published in New York City. Immediately following his discovery of the rabies vaccine in 1885, an event that led to the creation of the Institut Pasteur, Louis Pasteur became known throughout the world. The event inaugurated relations with the United States. In fact, four American children who were bitten by a dog in Newark were sent to Paris for rabies treatment. This event received massive press coverage and made Pasteur a household name in America. In January 1886, when the healthy children returned via the port of New York, they became national celebrities, and a statue of Pasteur supervising a vaccination soon appeared in a famous New York City wax museum, the Eden Musée.

Numeric key to figures in the Judge Cartoon

This cartoon recognizes the whirlwind of interest in Pasteur’s story and transforms it into a political cartoon of the U.S. President as “Pasteur Cleveland” (Figure 1a) vaccinating government against corruption (Figure 1b). Just as a wax museum is filled with the day’s most famous personalities and cultural references, the cartoon is filled with political caricatures of 1886: Joseph Pulitzer as Lady Liberty (Figure 2), the Tiger of Tammany Hall (Figure 3b), Topsy from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” (Figure 19) three little maids (Figures 7a, 7b and 7c) from the hit show “The Mikado,” and many others.

When this artist used the image of Pasteur's rabies vaccination to indicate his support for the President's promotion of civil service reform, he understood that this powerful image of the new life-saving remedy of immunization would speak loudly to the millions of Americans, who were reading and talking about Pasteur's first American patients.

Date: 1886

Location: Bert Hansen Collection, New York, New York

Acknowledgment: Images used with the kind permission

of Bert Hansen.

 

Click below for enlargements

Mural at the Louis Pasteur School of Detroit To come: Detail of Diego Rivera's Detroit mural depicting Louis Pasteur
Pasteur Hall of Winona State College Louis Pasteur Elementary School of Chicago To come: Painting of Pasteur at Chicago Medical Center West Virginia University Pylon Bas-relief of Louis Pasteur
Judge Cartoon of President Cleveland depicted as Louis Pasteur inoculating the democracy"Louis Pasteur" Microscope Set

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