Life, 1884-01-17 · page 7 of 16
Life — January 17, 1884 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Archaeological Surgery" Analysis This cartoon satirizes the emerging field of orthopedic surgery, presenting it as comically crude. Two figures stand outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art—establishing an intellectual, cultured setting meant to heighten the humor. The caption stages a dialogue between two "Guardians of the Park" (likely park officials), discussing a man with a broken hip. One guardian claims they've "fixed" him, prompting the other's shocked response that they should "give him another." The joke plays on the double meaning of "fixing"—both surgical repair and the colloquial sense of rough treatment. The accompanying story below mocks early surgical techniques as primitive, comparing modern medicine unfavorably to crude folk remedies. The satire targets both medical incompetence and the pretensions of new scientific fields.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
MY ADORED. HE was such a lovely maiden, Ne’er was fairer born ; By her glances Cupid-laden Were my heart-strings torn. How I longed to make her love me, Longed to call her mine ; But I feared she was above me, She seemed so divine. Now, alas ! my hopes are broken— I could bear reproof— But those accents lowly spoken “0! Come off the roof.” J.J. J. Carte de visite —A village cart. Mirabile dictu—“ The d—l you say !” Arrectis Auribus.—Getting up on his ear. “A WOMAN wants a rough wash” ap- pears in the column of “situations want- ed” in the Philadelphia Ledger. So does Denis Kearney and so does Herr Most. The roughest kind; nothing short of a sandstone scour would make any impression. Two fond young Pennsylvanians went down to the Luray caverns in Virginia and were married in the cave. Sensible young ducks, to begin their married life by creeping into a hole in the ground. About the time they have kept house one year, and the bills begin to come in, they will want to go back into their bridal cave and pull the whole thing in after them, cave, bridle and all. ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURGERY. 1st Guardian of the Park: AND PHWHAT ARE YEZ DOIN’ WID THE MAN WID DE BROKEN HID? 2nd Guardian of the Peace : WHIST NOW, BE AISEY. HIM A BIT TOO HARD AND HIS HID HAS PARTED, BUT I’tu HAVE HIM FIXED YONDER. 1st Guardian of the Park: AND 1T’S A SMART BOY YE ARE. Ir THEY CAN'T FIX ¢hat HID, THEY ’LL GIVE HIM ANOTHER. I ruMPED Percy glued his eye to this hole in the partition and found himself looking into what seemed to be a tailor shop, for there was a man cutting some very handsome cloth that fairly made Percy’s mouth water it was such a beautiful trowsers pattern. There was a sewing machine in the room and a peculiar table about six feet in length that ran upon cogs in an iron. groove, and was propelled by a band from a wheel on the sewing machine. Percy had not gazed long through ‘he nole, when to his unutterable amazement, his friend Bertie Mangoose appeared from a back room, primevally attired. He was smoking a cigarette with an air of great unconcern, and to the still further surprise of his friend, he climbed upon the peculiar table and lay down. The tailor brought the cloth he had been cutting, arranged it about Bertie’s limbs, and then strapped him to the table. “He ’s going to kill him!” cried Percy, a terrible thought that Bertie had engaged the man to assist him to commit suicide, forcing itself upon him. “‘S’sh’h’h !”? whispered Detective Pinkeye. another word!” Percy turned from the peep-hole with horror, but the sound of the machine in operation induced him to look through again. The tailor was working the machine, and the peculiar table was running along beside it, with Bertie lying prone upon it and the smoke rising in a little cloud from the cigarette he was serenely puffing. : ‘The truth flashed upon Percy so suddenly that he almost staggered. Bertie’s secret was out, and the club ordered a special tailor to fit them—the result being what we see every day. “Not F. M. W.