The art of contagion: infectious diseases on display.

AN EXHIBITION of North American, European, Asian, and African health posters dating from the 1920s to the 1990s--warning of infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, gonorrhea, and syphilis--provides insight into the interplay between the public's understanding of disease and society's values, reflecting the fears and concerns of the time as well as the medical knowledge that was available. Considered an art form, many are beautiful and entertaining but, during their heyday, they sought to educate people on matters of life and death.

Public health took a visual turn about 100 years ago. In an era of devastating epidemic and endemic infectious disease, health professionals began to organize coordinated campaigns that sought to mobilize public and government action through eye-catching posters, pamphlets, and motion pictures. Impressed by the images of mass media that increasingly saturated the world around them, health campaigners were inspired to present new figures of contagion, and recycle old ones, using modernist aesthetics, graphic manipulations, humor...