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1 print : lithograph, printed in colours ; sheet 34.9 x 50.1 cm

Coloured condoms and streamers representing the carnival in Brazil; an advertisement for safe sex to prevent AIDS by the Ministério de Saude Programa Nacional de Controle das DST/AIDS. Colour lithograph, ca. 1995.

1 photograph : photoprint ; sheet 8.9 x 15.9 cm

Bondi Beach, Sydney, New South Wales: members of Life Saving Clubs put on a display at a surf carnival. Photograph, ca. 1920.

Poster advertising an event at Bart's Pathology Museum about "long-lost emotions". Supported by the Wellcome Trust, images courtesy of the Wellcome Library. This was also issued as an A5 leaflet.

1 broadside : color illustrations ; 83 cm

The carnival of lost emotions

A Belgian bearded woman, ca. 190-, Mme. Sleebus. She is wearing a white blouse and dark skirt; holding a feather fan. Bearded ladies such as this (presumably people with the genetic disorder hypertrichosis) were standard exhibits at carnivals and sideshows throughout the western world from the eighteenth century onwards

1 print : process print ; sheet 13.9 x 9.1 cm

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard. Process print, 190-.

Left foreground, a tavern, outside of which a large crowd on a terrace celebrate carnival by eating, getting drunk, making love, and sleeping off their indulgences. Masked actors stage mock performances among them, accompanied by a man dressed as a Turk. Centre, a horse-drawn carriage drives towards a city in which people are enjoying bull-baiting, riding horse-drawn sleighs on ice, etc. Masked actors and musicians perform on a stage in the right foreground and on another stage in the city in the background. Top centre, the constellation Pisces

1 print : engraving ; image and border 20.2 x 28.7 cm

Months of the year: February, in which people celebrate carnival by over-indulgence, frost-fairs etc. Engraving after P. Stevens II.

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard, Belgium. Process print, ca. 1900-1910. Bearded ladies such as this were standard exhibits at carnivals and sideshows throughout the western world from the eighteenth century onwards.

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard.

Would these gruesome wax models showing the effects of syphilis make you think twice about having sex? That was their intention when they were made in the 1910s, and collected by painter Leonce Schiffmann for a touring anatomy exhibition in the 1920s. Doctors and public health officials claimed that the spread of this sexually transmitted infection would only be halted when the public knew about its consequences and means of prevention. 

Education campaigns tended to exploit society’s disgust of this unsightly infection. What is your reaction to the sores and ulcers seen here on the mouth and legs? Historians have argued that this approach did not solve the problem, but added to the fear of the disease, and the stigma and discrimination towards its sufferers.

‘Before and after’ waxes also aimed to show the value of prompt treatment with ‘magic bullet’ Salvarsan, the 606th arsenic compound tested by Paul Ehrlich and his team. Look for the models with a white label – they indicate treatment with (preparation) 606. The injections were painful though, and a long course was often needed. 

Former carnival ‘freak’ show owners Lily Binda and William Bonardo inherited the collection a few decades later. The waxes took on yet another role – to cause sensation. The life-size models, some with genuine human hair, were toured around European fairgrounds. But whether exhibited for education or leisure, their convincing depiction of syphilis has certainly made them a talking point.

maker: Unknown maker

Place made: Germany

Four wax heads showing the effects of syphilis and their tre

Three wax legs showing treatment of ulcers caused by syphili

This is a souvenir postcard printed in black on white card showing Fred Roper standing at the front of a line of 28 midgets in front of a half-timbered 'midget town' theatrical front. Potted ferns hang above from a glass ceiling above. Fred Roper and the troupe had enjoyed twelve years of success putting on vaudeville shows in Britain and South Africa during the 1920s and 1930s, moving to America for Morris Gest's "Midget Town" at the 1939 World's Fair in New York with its full strength of thirty midgets, three ponies, and two baby elephants, having two prosperous summers at the Fair, filling in the intervening winter with vaudeville dates before fortunes began to take a tumble. The troupe were part of a heritage dating from the Victorian and Edwardian freak shows which were very popular, travelling around the country putting on shows in local theatres. In addition to very small people there would have been others who were extremely fat, thin, tall or with various sorts of physical deformity (Siamese twins etc.) as well as full body tattoos, the most poular incorporating disability with novelty performances. Circuses and carnivals would have had tents where the 'performers' would sit and be stared at by the viewing public as they passed through. Souvenir postcards were a way of the shows making more money and give us a record today of growth and weight disorders at the time, as well as other physical disabilities.

1 sheet : illustrations, portraits ; 9 x 14 cm

Fred Roper and his wonder midgets.

Menu for the R.M.S. Caronia's dinner on Wednesday, 31 December 1952 during its West Indies Cruise. The front shows a harlequin in green dancing with a lady in long, puffed up pink crinoline dress against pillars and a moonlit seascape with tallships in full sail in the distance. A young woman with balloons is dancing on the back.

1 folded sheet (4 pages) : color illustrations ; 27 cm

Carnival

A cripple resting on his thighs and supporting his thorax with hand-crutches, detail from 'The fight between Carnival and Lent'

In the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Pieter Brueghel, A cripple with hand crutches.

1 print : lithograph, printed in colours ; sheet 59.2 x 43.4 cm

A yellow butterfly representing part of a message that life goes on after the Trinidad Carnival; a safe-sex advertisement by the National AIDS Programme of Trinidad and Tobago. Colour lithograph by Illya Furlonge-Walker, ca. 1995.

1 print : lithograph, printed in colours ; sheet 40.1 x 60 cm

A washing line bearing two inflated condoms and a red and yellow flag representing a safe-sex advertisement during the Brazilian Carnival by Gapa/BS. Colour lithograph, ca. 1995.

Poster advertising a late August carnival revue at W. Holland's North Woolwich Gardens  featuring dwarfs George Conquest and Tom Trump, comic ballet, comedians, singing, dancing, burlesque, bands and a firework display. Printed by Phillips Brothers, steam printers, 113 London Road, London, S.E.

Royal North Woolwich Gardens ... : W. Holland's grand carnival benefit on Monday, August 23rd, Tuesday, 24 & Wednesday 25, 1875. This is the event of the season!.

"Chie-en-lit: Nom que les enfants et les gens du peuple donnent par raillerie aux masques qui courent les rues pendant les jours gras. Une troupe de chie-en-lit. Ils leur crient de même, À la chie-en-lit, par corruption de 'Il a chié au lit', qui se disait autrefois" --Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 7. edition (1877), s.v.

1 print : lithograph, with watercolour ; sheet 34.7 x 25.7 cm

Two boys tease a carnival reveller wearing a grotesque mask, while a third boy blows a horn. Colour lithograph after L. Boilly, 1824.

1 drawing : watercolour ; sheet 20 x 27 cm

A street carnival in Bogotá, with a battle between personifications of medicine and disease. Watercolour by F.-D. Roulin, 1822/1828.

La smorza, or the Blowing out of the lights (French, "Souffler les lumières"), in the Corso in Rome, before midnight on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, the last day of carnival. Some people carry giant candle-snuffers with which to snuff out all the candles carried in the last days of the carnival

Rome: a crowd of revellers in the Corso celebrate the end of carnival by snuffing out candles. Etching by B. Pinelli, 1830.

One of a series of leaflets (roses) issued by Ciba advertising the nasal decongestant Otrivine. Showing an illustration of the 'Cologne Carnival' rose by Charles Raymond.

1 folded sheet (4 unnumbered pages) : colour ; 22 x 30 cm folded to 22 x 15 cm

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Coloured condoms and streamers representing the carnival in Brazil; an advertisement for safe sex to prevent AIDS by the Ministério de Saude Programa Nacional de Controle das DST/AIDS. Colour lithograph, ca. 1995.

Bondi Beach, Sydney, New South Wales: members of Life Saving Clubs put on a display at a surf carnival. Photograph, ca. 1920.

The carnival of lost emotions

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard. Process print, 190-.

Months of the year: February, in which people celebrate carnival by over-indulgence, frost-fairs etc. Engraving after P. Stevens II.

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard.

Four wax heads showing the effects of syphilis and their tre

Three wax legs showing treatment of ulcers caused by syphili

Fred Roper and his wonder midgets.

Carnival

Pieter Brueghel, A cripple with hand crutches.

A yellow butterfly representing part of a message that life goes on after the Trinidad Carnival; a safe-sex advertisement by the National AIDS Programme of Trinidad and Tobago. Colour lithograph by Illya Furlonge-Walker, ca. 1995.

A washing line bearing two inflated condoms and a red and yellow flag representing a safe-sex advertisement during the Brazilian Carnival by Gapa/BS. Colour lithograph, ca. 1995.

Royal North Woolwich Gardens ... : W. Holland's grand carnival benefit on Monday, August 23rd, Tuesday, 24 & Wednesday 25, 1875. This is the event of the season!.

Two boys tease a carnival reveller wearing a grotesque mask, while a third boy blows a horn. Colour lithograph after L. Boilly, 1824.

A street carnival in Bogotá, with a battle between personifications of medicine and disease. Watercolour by F.-D. Roulin, 1822/1828.

Rome: a crowd of revellers in the Corso celebrate the end of carnival by snuffing out candles. Etching by B. Pinelli, 1830.

If you have a patient who cannot smell a rose...the remedy may be Otrivine : rosa 'Cologne carnival' H.T.

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Coloured condoms and streamers representing the carnival in Brazil; an advertisement for safe sex to prevent AIDS by the Ministério de Saude Programa Nacional de Controle das DST/AIDS. Colour lithograph, ca. 1995.

Bondi Beach, Sydney, New South Wales: members of Life Saving Clubs put on a display at a surf carnival. Photograph, ca. 1920.

The carnival of lost emotions

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard. Process print, 190-.

Months of the year: February, in which people celebrate carnival by over-indulgence, frost-fairs etc. Engraving after P. Stevens II.

Julianne Sleebus, a woman with a large beard.

Four wax heads showing the effects of syphilis and their tre

Three wax legs showing treatment of ulcers caused by syphili

Fred Roper and his wonder midgets.

Carnival

Pieter Brueghel, A cripple with hand crutches.

A yellow butterfly representing part of a message that life goes on after the Trinidad Carnival; a safe-sex advertisement by the National AIDS Programme of Trinidad and Tobago. Colour lithograph by Illya Furlonge-Walker, ca. 1995.

A washing line bearing two inflated condoms and a red and yellow flag representing a safe-sex advertisement during the Brazilian Carnival by Gapa/BS. Colour lithograph, ca. 1995.

Royal North Woolwich Gardens ... : W. Holland's grand carnival benefit on Monday, August 23rd, Tuesday, 24 & Wednesday 25, 1875. This is the event of the season!.

Two boys tease a carnival reveller wearing a grotesque mask, while a third boy blows a horn. Colour lithograph after L. Boilly, 1824.

A street carnival in Bogotá, with a battle between personifications of medicine and disease. Watercolour by F.-D. Roulin, 1822/1828.

Rome: a crowd of revellers in the Corso celebrate the end of carnival by snuffing out candles. Etching by B. Pinelli, 1830.

If you have a patient who cannot smell a rose...the remedy may be Otrivine : rosa 'Cologne carnival' H.T.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collectionWellcome Collection

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Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome collection