A cheaper vaccine for cattle: U.N. Day Poster No. 7 in Japanese, 1953

A Japanese-language photo poster numbered 7 in a U.N. Day set, filed with U.S. Information Agency posters distributed in Asia, catalog date 14 September 1953. Two men in white coats treat a cow, and the text says vaccination protects livestock from rinderpest but still costs too much (NAID 5730109).

What the sheet shows

Two men in white coats treat a cow while a third man, in a turban, holds its chain, with bare hills behind them; that is the photograph as the archive records it. The text is a headline, a short paragraph and the number 7. The record notes the Japanese uses historical kana spelling and that no imprint is printed.

ワクチンの新製造法によつて、家畜は、恐ろしい牛疫から護られる。

[...] 然しワクチン接種で、家畜を護ることが出来る。ワクチンは、まだあまり高価すぎる。FAOは製造法の改善と接種の簡易化を研究中である。

[Archive's English translation:] Through a new method of making vaccine, livestock are protected from the dreaded rinderpest. [...] But vaccination can protect livestock. The vaccine is still too expensive. The FAO is researching improvements in the method of manufacture and simpler inoculation.

FAO named, the United States not

The National Archives holds the sheet in Record Group 306, among the U.S. Information Agency's propaganda posters distributed in Asia, with a catalog date of 14 September 1953. The maker line names the agency and its State Department predecessor. The only organization the text names is FAO. It does not name the United States. FRAME classes the source as blurred.

A headline ahead of its text

FRAME tags the poster glittering generalities and plain folks: herders and technicians appear as the people a research program helps. The archive files the themes as health, and science and technology.

Read closely, the headline and the paragraph do not say the same thing. In the archive's translation the headline says a new method of making vaccine protects livestock. The paragraph says the vaccine is still too expensive and that FAO is still researching better manufacture. The headline announces a result; the text describes work in progress. Since the translation is unverified, that reading should be checked against the Japanese by a fluent reader.

The paragraph also admits a cost problem, a candid line for a promotional sheet. What the sheet leaves out is its own sender. A Japanese-language reader saw an international agency credited and no American name, though the poster sits in an American agency's file. An earlier sheet in the State Department's Asia file, Kremlin's Words and Deeds, made the United Nations case by tabulating dollars. The program is described on the USIA posters abroad hub.