---
title: 'Blood-Poison: One Less Nail in Your Coffin'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-blood-poison-one-less-nail-in-your-coffin-1941/
description: A claw hammer grips a rusty nail beside bent nails, under the word 'Blood-poison' and the line 'One less nail in your coffin'.
section: Collection
---

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3. Blood-Poison: One Less Nail in Your Coffin

[![Blood-Poison: One Less Nail in Your Coffin, 1941 UK poster: A claw hammer grips a rusty nail beside bent nails, under](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-blood-poison-one-less-nail-in-your-coffin-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-blood-poison-one-less-nail-in-your-coffin-1941.jpg)

# Blood-Poison: One Less Nail in Your Coffin

A claw hammer grips a rusty nail beside bent nails, under the word 'Blood-poison' and the line 'One less nail in your coffin'. The tell for fear appeal is the coffin: a workshop hazard is framed as a threat of death, followed by a plain instruction to pull out or knock down protruding nails.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

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

```
Pat Keely '41
BLOOD-POISON
ONE LESS NAIL IN YOUR COFFIN
Pull out or knock down protruding nails
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.
ML/45
Printed by LOXLEY BROS. LTD.
```

[← Back Them Up! (capture of U 570 by a Lockheed Hudson)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-back-them-up-u570-hudson-1941/) [Danger From Lyctus Beetle: Hardwoods Make War Weapons (Ministry of Supply No. 105) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-danger-from-lyctus-beetle-1941/)

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- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
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