Judge, 1918-01-12 · page 18 of 28
Judge — January 12, 1918 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical comic strip mocks "neurasthenia," a fashionable diagnosis of nervous exhaustion afflicting wealthy urbanites. The protagonist, Silas Cowlick, represents a nervous hypochondriac whose condition worsens after city exposure to automobiles and their horns. The humor escalates as trivial rural sounds—a windmill, a saw, a pig's grunt, even a dinner horn—trigger increasingly hysterical reactions in this supposedly refined gentleman. Each panel shows him in exaggerated panic from everyday farm noises. The satire targets both the pretentiousness of urban "neuraesthetic" sufferers and the comedy of a man so psychologically fragile that countryside life—traditionally considered restorative—becomes unbearable. The strip mocks the era's tendency to treat minor anxieties as serious medical conditions worthy of elaborate avoidance and concern.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Silas Cowlick spent the week in town dodging autos; his nerves were reduced to such a state that— Lal li: The song of the saw in the hired man’s hands, casts him into a frenzy—