The Wellcome Collection's Dirt exhibition - in pictures

A public hygiene poster warning of the dangers of the typhus louse and instructing Soviet 'Red Soldiers' to fight the threat of typhus by washing themselves and their clothes vigorously Photograph: Wellcome Library, London

A 1940s US public health poster depicting a woman wearing a sandwich board annoucing she has venereal disease Photograph: Wellcome Library, London

An 1860s public notice advising inhabitants of the London east end districts of Limehouse, Ratcliff, Shadwell and Wapping to boil all water before use to prevent the spread of cholera Photograph: Wellcome Library, London

Official poster for the First International Hygiene Exhibition staged in Dresden, Germany, during 1911. The exhibition was largely the brainchild of the wealthy manufacturer Karl Ligner, and it led to the founding of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Photograph: Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden

A poster promoting the ground-breaking Finsbury Health Centre, issued by A.B.C.A. in the 1930s Photograph: Wellcome Images/Wellcome Images

Advert from Hudsons soap
December 1888 Photograph: Museum of London/Wellcome Collection