Long, Maebh2024-09-052024-09-052024Long, M. (2024). ‘Immune from the germ-laden things’: Immunity and Irish newspaper advertising, 1890–1940. Social history of medicine, 20(20). https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae0350951-631Xhttps://hdl.handle.net/10289/16879From 1890, as advertising in Irish newspapers grew in quantity and sophistication, a discourse of immunity began to circulate. Advertisers drew on advancements in bacteriology and immunology to present their goods as defensive strategies against a range of threats, from major infectious diseases to everyday coughs and colds. Consumers were urged to supplement their bodies’ vulnerabilities by purchasing pills and tonics, with medical products joined by immunity-assuring underwear, coats, cosmetics and cars. From a dataset of every immunity-focused advertisement in the Irish Newspaper Archives and The Irish Times archives between 1890 and 1940, I unpack the ways immunity was presented to the Irish public outside of medical institutions. I show how discourses of immunity intersected with influenza outbreaks, consider the implication of the non-national origins of many advertisements, and trace their rhetoric of protection and resistance across a range of product types.enAttribution 4.0 International © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/immunityadvertisingnewspapersIrelandimmunologyJournal Article10.1093/shm/hkae0351477-46664303 Historical Studies50 Philosophy and Religious Studies43 History, Heritage and Archaeology5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields4303 Historical studies5002 History and philosophy of specific fields3 Good Health and Well Being