Judge, 1922-07-15 · page 14 of 36
Judge — July 15, 1922 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This humorous essay by Walt Mason, illustrated by Henry J. Peck, satirizes people who offer unwanted remedies and criticism while ignoring their own problems. The cartoon shows an elderly man seated while a woman at a stove offers folk cures (pepper sauce and tabasco for rheumatism). The accompanying text uses this as a framework for broader social criticism: well-meaning neighbors dispense bad advice about health, writing, and morality despite their own obvious ailments and failures. Mason's main targets are: - **Folk medicine peddlers** offering bogus cures - **Amateur literary critics** (like "George Jimcrack") who dismiss practical subjects while producing their own mediocre work - **Chronic pessimists** who spread doom-saying through newspapers and speeches without addressing actual problems The phrase "Physician, heal thyself" (a biblical reference) is the key: Mason argues that before criticizing others, people should address their own shortcomings. The satire reflects early 20th-century American skepticism about quack remedies, literary pretension, and pessimistic public discourse.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Physician, Heal Thyself | having mumps or flu: opmes the dreary hic! Is e in rheumati : all through pains whiz, and w ys neck. I always have it in my leg, and so don’t re or run; T buy my ointment by the keg, and capsules And when I limp along the et, up comes the helpful cuss, and he exclaims, “So help me Pete, you need not suffer thus! I know a safe and easy cure that was my father’s pride; the rheumatism won't endure five minutes when it's tried, Just soak your legs in pepper sauce- tabasco is the best; your aches will be a total loss, and all your pain a jest.” ANP he who gives me counsel wise has hoof-and-mouth disease, and he has sore and rheumy eyes, and chilblains in nis knees, And I could tell him how to heal the ills that are his curse; but why By Watt Mason ItLustraTIon BY Henry J. Peck put up that sort of spiel, and make him feel much worse? Because a neighbor wearies me, and spoils a pleasant day, shall I, in vengeful spirit, be as weari- some a Some . When punishing my lyre, George Jimcrack comes along, and tells me that I should aspire to higher flights of si “You write,” he says, “of cheap john things, of grocers and their wads; a Milton or a Shelley sings about the old Greek gods. ‘True poets have their gor- geous dreams, and sing in golden tones; but you select such tawdry themes as butchers and their bones. I’m kept so busy peddling pups I have no time to write, but I could sing of buttercups to everyone's delight.” HIS Jimcrack’s written all his days, his odes and epics grand; and he has bales and bales of lays for which there’s no demand. And I might tell him when he sits and jaws and lectures me that no one cares for high-flown fits in cantos twenty-three. We're living in an age of jazz, near-beer and motor cars, and phono- graphs, and no one has a chance to walk the stars. If Milton, bard of sterling worth, were twanging harps to-day, the “Get down to earth! Give us a rhy' ) pessimist is still abroad, denounc- and that; there’s nothing that he will applaud, to all things he says, “Seat! He has a dozen catalogs of evils he has found; the country’s going to the dogs, and vice is all around. The books we're reading are no good, the plays we see are bad, our alcohol’s dis- tilled from wood, and all the world is sad. And what’s the matter with this land in which we groan and sob? It’s this: The pessimistic band is always on the job. F ALL the pessimistic bores would cease their doleful whine, and try to do some useful chores, the outlook would be Whene'er I read a Public Print— I'm taking three or four—I find some grim and grisly hint that doom is at our door. And all the orators I hear, in forum or in hall, are bringing messages of fear, discouraging us all. So let us heal ourselves, I say, of our own boil and wen, before we rear aloft and bray, and bore our fellow-men. “A safe and easy cure that was my father’s pride; the rheumatism won’t endure five minutes when it’s tried” 12 comicbooks.com