Life, 1903-04-23 · page 8 of 22
Life — April 23, 1903 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Main Cartoon ("A Grewsome Joke"):** The top illustration depicts a formal social scene where a woman in an elegant gown presents what appears to be a severed head on a platter to a seated gentleman. The caption quotes: "Look, papa! The Duke has banquot his coronet" and "Tell him to go ahead and play it. I don't mind the noise." This is **satirical commentary on the Pasteur treatment for hydrophobia (rabies)**. The text explains that while the treatment sometimes worked, some patients died afterward anyway. The joke mocks the grim irony: presenting death as if it were a social entertainment or acceptable outcome of medical treatment—darkly suggesting the "cure" was as deadly as the disease itself.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Look, PAPA! THE DUKE HAS BOUGHT MIs ConuNET.” “TLL WIM TO GO ANEAD AND PLAY IT. | DON'T MIND THE NOISE.” A Grewsome Joke. F there exists a comic element in tragedy the Pasteur treatment for hydrophobia seems to furnish it in lavish profusion. lor, of Nottingham, gave several casea which furnish decisive proof that bydrophobla ts sometimes brought on by the Pasteurixn tnoculations, as the patients referred to dled of hydrophob after undergoing the Pusteurian treatment, watle the dogs that bit them remained quite well! ‘The following are some of these cases : Leopold Nee, bitten st Armas, was subjected to the Pasteurian treatinent eight dass afterwards, and died of hydrophobla » month later, The dog that bit him was perfectly health Arthur Stovol, one of the scholars at the Lyceum at Lublin in Russia was bitten’ by & dog, and was immediately sent to the Pasteur Institute at Warsaw, where he received the usual treatment by {noculation, wud was discharged a month later with a certificate of cure, on the strength of Which he was readmitted to the Lyceum and resumed his studies Three mouths later, he felt pain in the region of the inocilations. and shortly afterwards he died of hydrophobla. Zhe dog that bit him remained quite well. ‘The groom of Signor Cameilo Mina was bitten by asheep dog, and subsequently died of hydrophobia, after having been subjected to the Pasteurian treatment at Milan fora month. The dog had nothing awhaterer the matter with it. A young palnter of Antwerp, named De Moens. when visiting a frend, was bitten slightly by his friend's dog: He was urged to go to M. Pasteur atonce, which he did, and was subjected to the Pasteurian antt-rabic treatment from the 20th of March to the 24 of April, After his retura he was suddenly attacked by hydrophobla and died on May 17th, The dog that bit him remained perfectly well. These are old cases and the performance is still going on, fiercely supported by its friends. You certainly get your money's worth by this treatment. If it can’t cure what doesn’t exist, it at least beats the dog on his own ground. Sport. SAN FRANCISCO: The officials of the Acropolitan Ath- \ letic Club insist that the ear-chewing contest between Cyclone O'Grady and Biff Bungstein, for the championship of the world, will be pulled off as scheduled. They claim to have given the police satisfactory assurances that the contest will be for points only, and a scientific ex- hibition. New York: Interest in the great ear-chewing match at San Francisco is intense. O'Grady has a shade the better of it in the betting, although a well-kuown broker and politician has one hundred thousand dollars on Bungstein at even money. Los ANGELES: Cyclone O’Grady, who is training near here for his ear-chewing contest with Biff Bungstein, has been pronounced fit by the experts and will do only light work from now out, Terence Floody, O'Grady's chief trainer, when asked to-day what the prospect was, pointed significantly to his own ears, which hung in tatters. O'Grady is satd to have a bicuspid grip which is a peach, comicbooks.com