Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases

Why it works

In October 1941 the Ministry of Health opened an autumn campaign against colds and flu built on one rhyming line: "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases". The cartoonist H. M. Bateman drew four scenes, in a factory, a shop, an office and the Underground, each showing someone sneezing without a handkerchief while the people around them recoil, with the instruction "Trap the germs by using your handkerchief" and the patriotic payoff "Help to keep the nation fighting fit". About 80,000 posters went up on buses, trams, the Underground, stations and in chemists' shops. The government's Wartime Social Survey then measured the result: 66 per cent of the people it questioned remembered the slogan, and 54 per cent recognised Bateman's cartoons. It is studied as an early, evaluated public-health campaign that relied on embarrassment and humour rather than fear. The Australian War Memorial notes that the slogan first appeared in the United States around the 1918 flu pandemic and has been revived by health bodies since, including in 2009 and 2020.