So, I’m not exactly sure what the intended message of this illustration is. My first thought was the aches and fatigue that follow a smallpox vaccination makes a couple not want to cling so closely to one another. If anyone has other ideas, I’m open to hearing them.

The context for the cartoon was a limited smallpox vaccination was ordered for the Iowa State campus on 27 Feb. There were few smallpox cases on campus and though none were serious, administrators deemed a vaccination order to be a good precautionary measure to those who were exposed. A Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican story stated “several hundred” students got the shot.