An evil man, representing medicine and religion (?), gloats over the death of the freedom of the individual in Switzerland to consume absinthe, represented as a green woman stabbed by a cross. Colour lithograph after A.-H. Gantner, 1910.

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<p>The central figure wears a blue cross on his chest and carries a Bible. He points to a clock held by a bat, indicating midnight on 7 October 1910, the deadline for absinthe-drinkers, and stands in triumph over the cadaver of a green, half-naked good-time girl representing absinth (the "green fairy"). She has been murdered with a dagger, the hilt of which is also in the form of a blue cross: her death represents the end of good times for absinthe-drinkers and the absinthe industry. In the background, left, the oath of the Rütli, 1291, representing the flourishing of Swiss liberty; right, Switzerland personified by a decrepit seated Norn, representing the degeneration of liberty in 1910</p>

An evil man, representing medicine and religion (?), gloats over the death of the freedom of the individual in Switzerland to consume absinthe, represented as a green woman stabbed by a cross. Colour lithograph after A.-H. Gantner, 1910.

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