Life, 1901-03-14 · page 7 of 20
Life — March 14, 1901 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This page from *Life* magazine satirizes medical practice through two pieces: **Upper section ("Esculapius Up to Date"):** The article mocks modern doctors' proliferation and specialization. It argues that Nature would have recovered 19 of 20 cases left alone, but medical science has made "vast strides." The tone is sarcastic—suggesting doctors aren't actually improving outcomes, just multiplying their own numbers and fees. The accompanying illustration shows a quack doctor's toolkit. **Lower cartoon ("Our Strenuous Theocracy"):** Captioned "The Senate will come to order," this depicts the U.S. Senate in complete chaos—senators fighting, sprawling, and disorderly. The satire targets congressional dysfunction and incompetence, suggesting the Senate cannot maintain basic order or decorum. Both pieces reflect Progressive-era skepticism toward institutions (medicine, government) claimed to serve the public interest.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
; “CNFIE* Esculapius Up to Date. ay HEN Nature first began to rear up the destructive forces, so that man would not increase too rapidly upon the face of the earth, she found that, after all her planning, man had gotten the best of her, and would multiply more than was good for him. Doctors were then added, and since this happy thought we have done very well. It is estimated that nineteen out of every twenty “ cases’? } would recover naturally if left to themselves, but medical science has mado such vast strides that only about one case in twenty has a chance. There are various different kinds of doctors who prey upon human life, but they are easily classified. The family doctor is perhaps the best known, His ignorance is not specialized, but extends to all parts of the human anatomy. He comes usually about four or five every 207 tongue, probes your diaphragm for appendicitis, writes in a mortified language on a printed slip, and goes away, with the remark that you will bo all right in a day or 80, or that you may possibly live three months, as the case may be. If you are young and ignorant, you are either frightened to death, or suffused with a gentle glow of convalescence, in accordance with what you have been told. But if you are an old stager, you roll over in bed, call for a stiff drink of whiskey, throw the prescription out of the window, and sweat it out. A Family Doctor is nothing but a personified habit. You pay him to come and tell you there is no danger, and if he thinks there is, you drop him and move up one, You began at the foot of the class, and now you rush off and consult a specialist. A Specialist is a man who lives in town, either on the first floor of a smart apartment house, or in a home of his own, When he lives in an apartment house you pay him fifteen dollars to shake hands with him, but when he lives in his own home you place a first mortgage on all the property in your wife’s name, As you enter his office you see a china closet full of glittering instruments, which you immediately begin to feel entering your system at various points. Your eye lights then upon a nickel-plated fountain of running water, which you surmise is to wash away all evidences of the crime. You feel at once that you are in hours after he is needed, feels of your pulse, looks at your no condition to cope with this array of science. You are OUR STRENUOUS THECOORE. “THe SENATE WILL COME TO OnDEr.” comicbooks.com