---
title: If You Are Suffering from Scabies
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-if-you-are-suffering-from-scabies-1939/
description: A large scabies mite fills the left panel, with a khaki soldier's silhouette walking across its body; the right panel gives plain health instructions
section: Collection
---

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3. If You Are Suffering from Scabies

[![If You Are Suffering from Scabies, 1939 UK poster: A large scabies mite fills the left panel, with a khaki soldier's](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-if-you-are-suffering-from-scabies-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-if-you-are-suffering-from-scabies-1939.jpg)

# If You Are Suffering from Scabies

A large scabies mite fills the left panel, with a khaki soldier's silhouette walking across its body; the right panel gives plain health instructions for servicemen on leave and their families. The fear appeal is the oversized parasite enclosing the soldier, set against factual advice on symptoms and free treatment.

## 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

```
IF YOU ARE
SUFFERING FROM
SCABIES

Scabies is caused by a small insect which burrows into the skin. This insect can pass from person to person.

The burrowing of the insect in the skin usually causes itching.

If you have been on leave, either you may have infected someone at home, or, possibly, someone at home may have infected you.

Scabies can cause much suffering to children and babies: If you have been on leave during the past six weeks, you should write home at once and ask if anyone at home has noticed any spots on their body or limbs, perhaps associated with itching.

If anyone at home has these symptoms, they should go to the doctor, or, if they have no doctor, to the hospital for Treatment. In civilian life treatment can usually be given without loss of working hours.

If they are in any difficulty at home about where to go, the Medical Officer of Health, in any large town, or the County Medical Officer, if they live in the country, will give them all the information they require, without charge.

PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY H. MANLY & SON LTD. 51-2447.
```

[← If, after Rudyard Kipling (savings group verse)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-if-after-rudyard-kipling-savings-group-1939/) [I'm Fighting Food Says Potato Pete →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-im-fighting-food-says-potato-pete-1939/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 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/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [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.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)