Life — August 20, 1903 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

two hundred or so a minute, punched him gently in the solar plexus. ‘Aha!’ he cried, ‘tas I suspected. Appendicitis. Not a moment to lose, and now to the operating table.’’ The visitor's appendix having been removed, he was allowed to proceed with his inquiries. “What is this place?’’ he asked, a week or so later. “The consumptive ward,” said the attendant. ‘* Wait a moment, please. You have every symptom.” Ho was promptly seized and put under an X-ray, “I find,’ said the doctor, “that you have lesions at both apices, with cavities extending into the lower left lobe, and suspicious murmurings in the right bronchi. The chances are that you will live eight months or a year ——"”” He tapped him thoughtfally on the collar-bone. «Or possibly,”’ he added, ‘* thirteen months.” The visitor, although visibly affected, had not utterly lost his nerve and, being a man of means, began to plan his escape. . “ May I ask,” he said feebly, ‘how such a magnificent institution as this exists, and if they are common?’ -LIFE: 179 “They are,” replied the doctor, ‘common as dirt and exist through the generous donations of our philanthropical millionaires, who make modern medical science the grand success it is.’" “How much will it cost me to get out of here alive?” The doctor mentioned a tidy sum, ‘But surely," he observed, “you are not going to leave us. Medical science has scarcely had a whack at you yet. May I ask where you are going?” And the visitor, handing him his release money, replied hopefully, “I'm going back to the woods. In these days it's the only safe place for a well man to live in.”” Tom Masson, Merit, Etc. [THE career of Major-General Leonard Wood clearly exhibits the difference between merit and pull. Paull is where a man is boosted by a politician ; merit, where he is boosted by a statesman. A statesman may be distinguished from a politician by his taking himself much more seriously. comicbooks.com