Life, 1893-03-30 · page 20 of 28
Life — March 30, 1893 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **product advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It promotes Scott's Emulsion, a cod liver oil supplement marketed to parents of weak or underweight children. The decorative border features cherubic infants, emphasizing the product's appeal to families concerned about child health. The text uses physician endorsement—a common marketing tactic of the era—to establish medical credibility. By calling cod liver oil "almost as palatable as milk," advertisers addressed a real concern: the notoriously unpleasant taste of the supplement. The $1 price and "Sold by all Druggists" indicate this was a mass-market patent medicine. Such supplements were genuinely popular in the late 19th/early 20th century, before modern pediatric nutrition standards. For modern readers, this reflects an era when nutritional deficiencies were common and commercial remedies filled perceived medical gaps—some legitimately helpful, many dubious.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Physicians speak of fat-food as “life food,” and say that all children ought to have it in abundance. The well fed infant flourishes upon his fat-food—the fat which is in rich milk! Physicians say, more impressively still, that thin, weak, nervous children must have fat-food —and then they recommend the prompt use of Scott’s Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil with Hypo- phosphites of Lime and Soda. Nothing in the world of medicine-food so quickly produces flesh and strength. Little ones, as well as adults, take it with ease, for Scott's Emulsion is ALMOST AS PALATABLE AS MILK. Prepared by SCOTT & BOWNE, Chemists, New York. Sold by all Druggists—$1. comicbooks.com