Life, 1884-09-25 · page 15 of 16
Life — September 25, 1884 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily an **advertising page** rather than a satirical cartoon page. The main visual element is a single illustration labeled "Do You Sleep?" featuring **cherubs surrounding a large bottle of "Verve"** tonic—a patent medicine claiming to cure insomnia and nervous conditions. The satire is subtle but present: the advertisement ironically uses innocent, cheerful angels to promote a "purely vegetable" remedy for the exhaustion of modern industrial life. The text reveals the actual problem it addresses—overwork, worry, and mental strain affecting merchants, lawyers, and clergymen—while promising relief without the "fatal" side effects of opium, morphine, and chloral (contemporary addiction-prone drugs). This reflects **genuine 1880s anxieties** about nervous exhaustion from rapid urbanization and work culture, though modern readers would recognize Verve as a dubious patent medicine relying on marketing rather than efficacy. The cherubs provide visual irony: suggesting innocent wellness while promoting a commercial product of questionable merit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Jboenold, Cate ble KA Co, CARPETS AND ORIENTAL RUGS. INVITE INSPECTION OF THEIR Fall Which is now Complete and Includes a Great Variety of Patterns Exceptionally Choice in De- sign and Colorings. Stock of Carpetings, Broadway A 19th st. Send one, two, three or five dole _qlars for a retail box, by” express, of the Dest Candies In the world, put ap to handsome boxes. All strictly pure. Saitable Tor presents. Try it once, Address, C.F.GUNTHER, Confectioner, 78 Maptson Sr., Cuicaco. Cavanagh, Sanford & Co., Merchant Tailors and Importers, 16 West 23d STREET, Opposite sth Ave, Hotel, NEW YORK. All the latest London Fabrics regularly imported. Nervous Debility Reefeth DO YOU SLEEP? NSOMNIA, the great curse of the American people, is the direct result of Nervous Exhaustion, consequent upon Overwork, Worry, and Mental Strain. The common recourse of the sufferer, is to Opium, Morphine, Chloral, Valerian, Phosphorus, and other drugs whose continued use is fatal. VERVE contains none of these substances. It is purely vegetable, acts directly upon the exhausted nerve centres, and by its tonic action, produces a healthful, natural sleep, with ‘no after effects. Two or three bottles have cured permanently cases of Insomnia, of months’ standing. In Neuralgia, Nervous Irritability, Headache, Mental Depression, Hysteria, Loss of Energy following overwork or continued excitement, and all diseases of the Nervous system it is of inestimable value. Merchants and Business men, Clergymen, Lawyers, Authors, and all persons subject. to long-continued mental labor, will find natural sleep easily at hand with this remedy in their possession. Order only from reliable druggists, or direct, enclosing $1, from the VERVE DEPOT, 65 West 33rd Street, New York. SOLE AGENTS FOR U. S. AND CANADA, - LIFE - For 1883 AND 1884. VOLS. L, Il. anp III, Vol. I., Jan. to June, 1883, inclusive; Vol. I1., July to December, 1883, inclusive; Vol. IIT, Jan. to June, 1884, inclusive, durably bound, for sale at the publication office. Price, postage free, Vol. I., $10.00; Vol. II., $5.00; Vol. IIL. $5.co, To subscribers returning a complete set of Vol. I. or Vol. IIT, that Volume will be forwarded fur $2.50. Address, | CHILDS’ CATARRH Treatment For comicbooks.com