Life, 1906-02-22 · page 9 of 24
Life — February 22, 1906 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This illustration depicts two working-class figures—a man in a cap and a woman in modest dress—embracing emotionally at what appears to be a departure. The caption "WHEN you are in Rome, do the Romans" suggests a cynical commentary on social mobility and romantic relationships. The accompanying text criticizes medical specialists and practitioners who abandon their humble origins upon achieving success, becoming "congeneres of surgical spheres." The cartoon appears to parallel this professional betrayal: the couple represents the ordinary people left behind when ambitious individuals climb the social ladder, presumably to more "refined" circles—the working-class sweetheart abandoned for wealthier romantic prospects, much as doctors abandon their ethical roots for prestige and profit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*-LIFE- Men, Medicine and Specialism. ge ye Practice of medline sometimes: termed the < healing art by poets, ro- mancers and persons upon J whom medicine has not been practiced While there are of medicine as there are s many schools hoals of practitioners, practically there are only four whose fatal results are recognized by law and accepted as authoritative by coroners. These are allopathy or wholesale drug drenchery; homeopathy or retail seasoning: osteopathy or bone burnishing: and Christian science or plain leg pulling; but all are equally fatal, given time and practitioners enough he poo relations of these eminent schools—sarsaparillaists, bone setters, layers-on-of-hands, or touchers, blood-pur pain-killers and corn and freckle removers—while pro: fessionally despised, have had a marked intinence on the > rural districts by capturing markets hither the gold brick industry and satisiying the stere temperance disciples differs results, even as the pile termed a branch of medicine, from itm its methods of reachin: Venetian and Medicean schools of assassination differed, 1 one using the poniard, the other employing poison, The surgeon is educated more practically than the physician; the surgeon in dull seasons can turn his talents to carving in & restaurant or stabbing in an abattoir: while the physician in times of depression must turn poet or in- surance solicitor, Moreover, surgery is more profitable tis easier to remove the ned increment irom a patient with a kni than medicine ce or cleaver than with a pill or plaster, The opportunities of surgery have grown so great of late that surgeons, having iormulated a code of etiquette and a set of eperating-table manners, have agreed to specialize the carving possibilities of humanity inte various spheres of surgical activity. Thus an eye and car carver will scalp. crack. or trepan a skull only their prey by subdividing the anatomy of under protest; and an eminent throat cutter or chest dissector would blush to be discovered sapping for a liver or mining for an appendix. The teeth and toes have been banished irom the profession and turned over to humbler and less iatal practitioners, whose milder ac- tivities debar them irom the iruitiul recognition of coroners and embalmers. A great specialist who can re- ran appendix vermiform, with a carving kniie and a button-hook, without taking gas or sandbagging his patient. would no more think of ating proiessionally with a dentist or pedic move ung. a liver. ssoci- than Jolin D. Rockefeller would with a mere vendor of whale oil. The leading principle of specialism is live on your own anatomical territory; its fundamental axiom, the smaller the organ. the larger the fee: and only in the ennobling fraternity of consultation will a specialist invade other territory, Consultation is designed to impress the prey’s 239 relatives, furnish fees to surgical brethren, endorse the sword practice of the operator, soothe and satisfy the coroner, and placate kin more interested in the operated than the operation. Under the banners of specialism man has ceased to be a creature and become a congeries of surgical spheres; and the art of removing disagreeable persons has been raised to an exact science Sensible people will cease to rail at Carnegie. Rogers, the Czar, the Theatre Trust. Billie Hearst. the Sultan of Turkey, Vardaman and other public alilictions, when they learn to understand that with the right microbe and specialist these evils may be eliminated from society. Let us therefore shout. “Long live the specialist and” —if he does not interfere with the advancement of medical art—“his prey and patient Joseph Smith A Definition. joes Say, Jim, Jennie is daft to run down to Palm Beach for a coupe of weeks. What is it like down there, anyhow ? James: Well, I'l tell you where you get up in the morn Iv's the kind of a place x and dress for breakfast. Then you walk ’round for an hour and look at what the other g Then you go up and dress for golf and yo over to the links and look at the golf suits, Then you go up and dress for lunch, and after lunch you walk ‘round for an hour and look at what the other gays wore to lunch, ‘Then you take a nap till it’s time to dress for dinner, and after dinner you walk around for an hour and look at what all the other guys wore to dinner, and then you go to bed and wish to heaven you were some- where else, we dressed for breakfast in. THE PARTING. comicbooks.com