Dirty Vlas the organ-grinder demonstrating that people who spit or crack sunflower-seeds spread tuberculosis and are therefore enemies of the people's health. Colour lithograph by T. Pashkov, 192-.

Subject interpreted through verses at foot of image, which are paraphrased as follows. The main figure is an organ-grinder named "Dirty" Vlas, whose barrel organ is decorated with doll-like figures, who are spitting, and with a street scene at the entrance to a hospital. Vlas himself is spitting and holding a bag marked Sunflowers. To the accompaniment of the organ music, he tells the story of two people, called Natural Spitter and Seed Cracker. "These two people devour with relish sunflower seeds, and spit the rest out on to the street. They live as in a pig-sty. All around them is wet and fresh rubbish which generates germs and causes people to die, of diphtheria and tuberculosis, both children and adults. What a shame! People have spat over their mother-country: squares, railway stations, gardens, offices, fences. If the Flood were to occur again, it would not be able to clean up the whole of socialist Russia in one go. So the hospital population has risen rapidly. We humans increase the death rate: we consume and then spit out the rest. The death toll is thousands daily. The culprits are Natural Spitter and Seed Cracker. Fellow countryman! Why do we need to contaminate each other? Let's stop chewing seeds. Let's stop spitting all around us. Let's not infect our children and relations. Reduce the number of sick people drastically. Tidiness leads to culture. Natural Spitter and Seed Cracker will not be with us: they should go to the collective farm, that's the place for them. What a shame!"

The street scene depicted on the side of the organ shows a sign on the wall saying "Bol'nits" (meaning hospital). Below that sign is another saying in Russian "No vacancies". A sick man leaning on a stick is walking away from the hospital. Out of the side of the organ a tap protrudes, and from it flows (presumably) polluted water that pours down on to a factory, houses and goods waggons

Samopli︠u︡ i Shchelkuny vragi narodnogo zdraviia. ... Boritesʹ za chistotu! Znak Mezhdunarodnoĭ Ligi po Borʹbe s Tuberkulozom. Proletarii vsekh starn, soediniaitesʹ. Ris. T. Pashkov. Translation of lettering: Natural Spitter and Seed Cracker are the enemies of the health of the people. ... Fight for cleanliness! Workers of all lands unite. Bears (top left) a blue cross with two crossbars, with lettering meaning "Sign of the International League for the Battle against Tuberculosis". This cross was adopted as the symbol of the fight against tuberculosis on 23 October 1902 at a Berlin conference, on the suggestion of Gilbert Sersiron. It had been the device on the standard of Godfrey of Bouillon, who had placed it on the tower of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1099. Its adoption indicated that the fight against tuberculosis was analogous to a crusade seen from the Christian point of view. Though similar in form, it had no significant connnection with the cross of Lorraine. Information from Thierry Devinck, André Wilquin: publicités, Paris: Agence Culturelle de Paris, Mairie de Paris, 1991, p. 68 Bears (top right) hammer and sickle device with initials R.S.F.S.R

Kolichestve 3.500 eks. [print run 3,500].

Cite as: Wellcome Collection 545730i