People using Anios disinfectant to destroy microbes representing infectious diseases. Colour lithograph by G. de Trye-Maison, ca. 1910.

People on a clifftop, right, with to the left microbes in the air, represented as little monsters. Top right, men using a hand-pump to fire sprays of "Anios Liquide" over the cliff against the microbes, which are falling into the sea. Some of the microbes are labelled with names of diseases ("Charbon" [anthrax], "Mildew", "Fièvre Aphteuse" [foot-and-mouth disease], "Typhus", "Phtisie galopante" [galloping consumption or tuberculosis], "Choléra", "Peste")

In the foreground, a crowd of twelve people from different walks of life stand on the cliff and throw boxes of Anios powder at the microbes or pour Anios liquid from wicker-coated cans over them. The people include a workman (wearing clogs - Breton?), a postman, a chef, a waiter, a woman in a Breton coif, five middle-or upper-class men and a fashionable lady. Possibly the types portrayed may be associated with the diseases mentioned, e.g. the rustic Bretons with foot-and-mouth disease, the postman with mildew, the chef and waiter with typhus, the city-dwellers with cholera, etc.

The firm Laboratoires Anios was founded in 1898 in the Lille area by a chemist called Collet-Delval to sell products and services designed to ensure disinfection and hygiene in the vats of the growing brewing industry. In 1989 it moved to premises in Lille-Hellemmes, offering hygiene services to industry, hospitals, medical practitioners and institutional premises such as kitchens and old people's homes

[Paris?] : [publisher not identified], [1910?] (Paris (14 Rue Lafayette) : Imp. Ch. Wall & Cie.)

1 print : lithograph, printed in colours on two sheets joined horizontally ; sheets together 191.5 x 133 cm

Le microbe voilà l'ennemi. Pour le vaincre employez tous L'Anios desinfectant sans odeur. G. de Trye-Maison

W. Schupbach, 'Little monsters', Wellcome news, no. 27, 2001, p. 25

Wellcome Collection 460155i