Are You Crazy?

We may well ask. Here's an amusing piece of graphic-arts history, part of a collection of hygiene and mental-health posters in the University of Minnesota's Social Welfare History Archives. It depicts a blind-folded man above the caption "Is Your Mind Diseased?" Apparently, the U.S. Army Educational Commission, which created the poster in 1918, wanted to encourage soldiers to get a mental check-up--or at least to keep their minds on the task at hand. The man has a slight smile on his lips, and the thoughts depicted in his brain are all of . . . semi-naked women. I guess we're all insane.

Here's another poster on "How to Bathe." You are advised to do it "often."