Life, 1903-06-25 · page 13 of 23
Life — June 25, 1903 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the era's proliferation of health fads and pseudoscientific dietary advice. The text mockingly prescribes four absurd dietary rules—no meat, vegetables, cereals, or fruit—each supported by laughable "evidence" (gorillas don't eat meat, therefore meat is deadly; starch causes Scottish dialect novels). The satire targets how dietary reformers cherry-picked animal examples and made sweeping health claims without real scientific basis. By proposing an impossible diet that eliminates essentially all food, the author exposes the logical absurdity of contemporary health movements. The accompanying illustrations show people suffering comically from following such advice, emphasizing the ridicule. This reflects late-19th/early-20th-century skepticism toward fad diets and wellness crusades that dominated popular culture—a phenomenon that apparently felt as pervasive and questionable then as today.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
—————¢7-— 595 Your Diet. H, gentle reader, are you fully aware that even now you may be transgressing the sim- ple laws of health, and laying the foundation of future discord and disease? Be warned in time, and be guided by the following instructions : Finst.—No meat! The gorilla, the strongest animal known, that lives in the depths of the African forest and snatches his prey bald-headed, eats no meat, Some of our best laundry work is done by Chinamen, and they eat no meat, pre- ferring starch for their purpose, Meat is deadly. If persisted in, the pulse increases, and your strength, purely fictitious, will suddenly collapse. Meat is man’s worst enemy. Seconp.—No vegetables! It can be proven, nay, it has been proven, that vegetables contain a large percentage of starch, and what is more fatal tothe human system than starch? Starch is death! Turpv.—No cereals! Of all forms of food, cereals are no doubt the worst. The so-called health foods clog the system, and, if persisted in, will cause premature decay. Almost all the Scotch dialect novels of the day were written under the influence of oatmeal. What more need we say ? Fourtu.—No fruit ! The lion, noblest of beasts, so wondrous strong, eats no fruit, and gaze upon his grand physique. If ripe fruit is full of example fails to inspire us with any genuine enthusiasm for illiter- acy, with any urgent desire to shut up our colleges and schools. The frank admission that education is only a means to an end, and that the end is affluence; the frank denial of any finer aspirations, of any broader scheme in life, startle us when presented cold-bloodedly in the pages of areview. We have traveled far along strange roads to reach such logical conclusions. And we have lost something by the way. But it %: amusing to watch Mr. Carnegie thrusting a surfeit of books upon the American people, and to see him at the same time held up to English eyes as a shining example of what may be achieved by letting books alone. aAAgues Repplier, JASPAR: Young Scadsby has enough. “Why doesn’t he keep ont of business and give others a chance? Jumpurpe : But it is by going into business that rich young men like him give smart young men a chance to make money. Evening Up. aaa od 2 RIGGS : How can Stickney cut up so, with his wife in a sani- tarium? Gricas : He considers himself and wife as one, and he is having just as much fun as p “MAMMA, DON'T YOU THINK I'M LARGE ENOUGH TO PUT ON LONG PANT!" “YES, YOU'RE Lance ENOUGH, BUT YOUR PATHER CAN'T ble, to make up for her lack of it. apronp 17.” comicbooks.com