Life, 1909-07-22 · page 17 of 28
Life — July 22, 1909 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon**: Six panels depicting a man (the "toper"—a drunkard) in various poses, with a fly as his companion. The title "The Toper and the Fly" suggests a satirical fable about drunkenness and its consequences, though the exact moral is unclear from the image alone. **Main Article**: Satirizes the medical profession's economic struggles. The piece notes that 60% of New York physicians earn under $1,500 annually, blaming "too rapid growth of specialism." The satire's point: families can afford a general practitioner but cannot pay multiple specialists (referenced as asking "a third or fourth" doctor). The article argues doctors should reduce fees for childbirth care—babies are essential to their practice—yet poor young families (who actually have babies) cannot afford current rates, while wealthy elderly patients who don't need obstetric services can pay easily. This exposes class inequality in medicine. **Bottom Cartoon**: "The Bite of an Adder"—appears to be a modern adaptation of the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep," likely mocking contemporary social issues, though details remain unclear.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE TOPER AND THE ways hungry. It has been demonstrated that those who are mentally engaged in such a business enterprise as gossip about one’s neighbors require more nourishment than the hands who work on railroads. So she eats her third hearty meal, lingering over it voraciously and leaving it reluctantly, and once more mingles with her victims. The music has begun. starts up. Lovers steal away into dark corners. Certain husbandless wives smile at alien escorts. Meanwhile the porch hen, well wrapped up in her cashmere shawl, conceals her- self in a shadow and with gagle eye watches the gay procession The dancing PLY Later, when she retires, she kneels metaphorically and says: “© Lord, give us this day our daily scandal.’ Sorrows of the Doctors MERICAN MEDICINE says that <7 the economic problems of the prac- ticing physician are daily becoming more serious, and that sixty per cent. of the physicians in New York are not carning $1500 a year. It says there is trouble somewhere, and finds some of it in “ the too rapid growth of specialism, beyond all needs and demands.”* There or thereabouts, we guess, is the main trouble. Most families can af- ford a family doctor to tell them what's 117 the matter and what to do, bat compara tively few families can afford a doctor who must ask some other doctor what ails them, and then call in a third or fourth to do something. It is not that all the doctors may not be amply worth their fees, but that the families have not got the money to divide jong so n Fifteen bundred dollars is not,an ex- for so simple an baby in a moderately New York family. Elderly people who are out of the habit of h: ing babies, can often afford such a fee and would cheerfully pay it if they had But rash, young people, who cessive doctor's bill event as a new well-to-do occasion. are the ones who have the babies when pay for he don't, of an't possibly asa rule they pay more than nd have it deeply that babies course they can afford, im- pressed upon them are be- yond their means, But babies are the b mainstay of the doctors’ be mean fees at the start, and then patient They should be welcomed, not scared of We recommend the physicians to reduce the tariff on babies in the trade. interest of Up-to-date Version AA! Baa! little lamb. wool? Yes, sir; yes, sir. He full. One for the System, and one for the same, And one for the ditto. a shame! Have you any three bags No more? What THE DITE OF AN ADDER comicbooks.com