---
title: 'Sepsis: Get First Aid'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sepsis-get-first-aid-1943/
description: A pale hand with red lines of infection running from a pricked fingertip down the arm is set against a dark blue skull.
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Sepsis: Get First Aid](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sepsis-get-first-aid-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sepsis-get-first-aid-1943.jpg)

# Sepsis: Get First Aid

A pale hand with red lines of infection running from a pricked fingertip down the arm is set against a dark blue skull. The lettering reads 'SEPSIS' and 'GET FIRST AID'. Fear-appeal tell: the skull behind the wounded hand stages death as the outcome of an untreated scratch, followed by a one-line instruction.

- **Date:** 1943
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Ministry of Labour and National Service (produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents; design by Pat Keely)
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [United Kingdom](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-kingdom)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Churchill Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=churchill-government)
- **Leader:** [Winston Churchill](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=winston-churchill)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Warn or inform](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=warn-inform)
- **Themes:** [Health](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=health), [Labor](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=labor)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Regime:** [Churchill wartime government](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/churchill-government/)
- **Leader:** [Winston Churchill](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/churchill-government/#winston-churchill)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wellcome Collection (London), work b12022603, reference 44448i](https://wellcomecollection.org/works/d7f9wz7c), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY 4.0 per Wellcome Collection; UK Crown-issued, 1943 (over 50 years) Wellcome Collection

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
SEPSIS
GET FIRST AID

Issued by the Ministry of Labour and National Service and produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Terminal House, 52 Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.1.
```

A pencilled 'Pat Keely '43' in the upper right corner of the sheet is a later annotation, not part of the printed poster, and is not transcribed as poster text.

[← Sedari Menanam Hingga Memetik (From Planting to Harvest)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sedari-menanam-hingga-memetik-1943/) [She May Look Clean—But →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/she-may-look-clean-but-1943/)

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- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)