Mind-extending brain teasers, puzzles and games have long been used to entertain and educate, and fun has often masked underlying moral or public health messages. Julia Nurse examines examples, from simple race games that led players through a virtuous or vice-laden maze to dangerous gaming manoeuvres used as warnings about contemporary health issues.
The serious side of historical games
Words by Julia Nurse
- In pictures
![Manuscript page showing a grid 9 by 8 squares large with snakes, ladders, and Sanskrit text.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fadc88736-0484-4948-a1a6-63d09fbf6dbb_geydgvms.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
This old Sanskrit Game of Heaven and Hell (Jnana Bagi), known to us as Snakes and Ladders, was originally a way of teaching the importance in life of both fortune and misfortune, including disease. Each square has a number and a legend featuring the names of various virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes).
![Photograph of an etching of a board game with forfeits, penalties and rewards illustrated within numbered squares. The title of the game reads, The game of chance, or Harlequin takes all.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2F2f8963a3-ba94-4bcf-ad5a-1fbfe5736a6a_ep_000904_002.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The Game of Chance is a simple race game in which players compete to win tokens, on a journey involving forfeits with contemporary significance that are sometimes more puzzling than others. In this late 18th century variety of the game, winning was only possible by landing on the trickster, Harlequin.
![Photograph of a coloured engraving from 1848 depicting a large goose with three golden eggs. Numbered circles are printed on the body of the goose for playing the game of goose.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fb67203bb-dfab-46c5-a672-a9c9a8014589_ep_000904_004.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The prize in the Game of the Goose from 1848 was the golden egg. Players would have to navigate a moral obstacle course en route that echoed contemporary social hazards: costly delays at the Inn, potential drowning down the well, getting lost in the maze, incarceration in prison, and if particularly unlucky, death.
![Colour print showing a bearded man (Guan Yu) playing go whilst a surgeon cuts between two tourniquets on his upper arm.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fb1ea01a5-6e75-4807-82dd-c5a7fd6ce31d_ethrtvv9.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The heroic warrior Guan Yu (d. 220 CE) uses the game of Go to distract himself as his surgeon, Hua Tuo (active 3rd century CE), operates on his arm. Considered one of the four essential arts for cultured scholars in ancient China, this strategy game is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to the present day.
![Photograph of an engraving from 1851 which illustrates the layout for a board game, with the rules of the game written in the centre, surrounded by a ring of numbered tiles.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fa68a2a71-dd0d-473f-b596-a6c503e71e03_ep_000904_003.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The Mansion of Happiness is an 18th century board game specifically aimed at moral virtue. Only by navigating around the board through a series of virtues (justice, charity, industry) and vices (ingratitude, cruelty, idleness) is it possible to reach the final stop: happiness. Enlightenement views about how to live well were encapsulated within this game.
![Printed pamphlet with pictograms encouraging people to play the lottery.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2F08c32429-3bf9-44d5-911d-188d0bd76056_m6qhchse.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Pictograms have long been used as a more visual form of communication. In this 19th century lottery advert, they are used both to entertain and to spell out the instructions on how to enter the lottery to ‘Catch Fortune’.
The hazards of gambling are clear to see in this Victorian illustration of a gambler in despair having lost all his chips. The moral crusade against gambling occurred throughout the 19th century but attempts to legislate and control gambling debts failed to curb its continued practice.
![Board with a track in it and various holes for a small ball to fall into. The track begins at Slumdon and ends and "The Great Goal - Good Health".](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2F5bb8a1ea-b897-4090-860f-3d0697391279_j4e7ae4y.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
This puzzle taught how to avoid ill health and raised money for a worthy cause – the Infant’s Hospital in Vincent Square, London. This game acknowledges the link between poor housing and poor health. Each of the holes represents a barrier to ‘good health’. They include pneumonia, lack of sunlight, crowded housing, bad diet and meningitis.
![Drawing of an optical illusion showing a staircase in which there are four 90-degree turns that form a continuous loop with no discernible start or end points.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2F178e8add-fef8-46e5-82d9-b9871229695f_penrose+stairs.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The ‘Penrose stairs’, or ‘impossible staircase’ is a two-dimensional puzzle featuring four 90-degree turns that form a continuous loop with no discernible start or end. Although the staircase is conceptually impossible, it does not interfere with our perception of it. Conceived by the mathematician, Sir Roger Penrose in 1958, it inspired the work of the artist Maurits Cornelis Escher.
![Printed black and white drawings of two football teams comprised of children. On the left are "The Health Team" featuring Thinker (Capt.), Digester, Breather, Beater, Worker, Walker, Smeller, Feeler, Looker, Hearer and Eater. On the right are "The Disease Team" featuring Disey, Iggy, Lazy, Dusty, Dampy, Stuffy, Dirty, Chilly, Mouldy, Bitey and Germy.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fe1570608-aad6-4edd-b733-9a9c05d42790_taylor_+the+game+of+health+pp12%2638.jpg?w=1300&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The idea of gaming also played a role in health education. ‘The Game of Health’ is an educational pamphlet published in Glasgow around 1927. Posing as a team, the captain is at the centre as the ‘brain’ and as skipper of the opposing team, ‘Disease’ commands a host of probable forms of infection. The nation was thought to be in poor physical health at the time, prompting efforts to raise general standards of health, particularly in schools.
![A book cover in red featuring a triangle game board divided into smaller triangle spaces for players' counters.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fe30fc3b4-f714-425f-83e5-1e0ac0241d25_pn2jgvzq.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
Also aimed at children is this safe-sex book cover which was designed in 1997 for use in schools in Houston. Using the familiar gaming format, the aim of the game is to be the last non-HIV carrier on the board by avoiding landing on the spaces ‘Hooker’, ‘Pusher’ and ‘Little Action’. The lower the player’s score, the less contact is had with ‘sex’ and ‘drugs’. The higher the score, the more likely high-risk sex has been had.
![A colour lithograph showing a hand hanging over a chessboard has made its last move: white wins because the white king is protected by a condom; representing protection against AIDS.](https://images.prismic.io/wellcomecollection%2Fd21b80c8-aece-40f4-b130-3b7f90601638_bwau6tp3.jpg?w=1338&auto=compress%2Cformat&rect=&q=100)
The strategic symbolism of chess pieces offered ideal analogies for AIDS prevention posters in the 1990s warning about the need for sexual protection. The King determines the fate of the game yet his movement is restricted making him vulnerable in the middle of the board. By protecting himself – in this case by wearing a condom – he is safe and wins.
About the author
Julia Nurse
Julia Nurse is a collections research specialist at Wellcome Collection with a background in Art History and Museum Studies. She currently runs the Exploring Research programme, and has a particular interest in the medieval and early modern periods, especially the interaction of medicine, science and art within print culture.