Life, 1910-09-08 · page 35 of 40
Life — September 8, 1910 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical poem mocks a doctor's overconfidence in vaccination and medical science. The doctor boasts he can make his patient immune to diphtheria using serum from a cow, then adds serums from various sources (horse, rabbit, guinea pig) to cure all ailments "from freckles up to cancer." The tragic irony: instead of health, the child ends up with "various kinds of virus"—the doctor's indiscriminate mixing of animal serums has poisoned her rather than cured her. **The satire targets**: early 20th-century medical hubris and poorly understood vaccination practices. While vaccination was genuinely important for diphtheria prevention, the poem satirizes doctors who treated it as a cure-all, mixing unproven serums without understanding consequences. It reflects contemporary anxiety about modern medicine's safety and efficacy—a reasonable concern when medical science was still developing. The page otherwise contains a Reo automobile advertisement and an unrelated gender-based humor joke.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Serum-Comic Tragedy cior’s child, and he opportunity « to make her free © immunity Lhe, “as I indorse diphtheria, Should kil bad bacteria. This vacein rus from a cow (And I indorse it fully), Ip and anyhow child feel ‘bully.’ n up 80 much s the habit toxin, 100, injected ; A guinea 1 strain it through To get ii sinfected. Some vari I'm rather sure will answer; scrums of my own I make the all troubles known, From free up to cancer.”* Alas! Alas! ior all his pains The end was scarce desirous Se soon ha! nothing in her veins Bat various hinds of virus. No fuss, no trouble, no ther. Simply strain through Bcked ice and serve. ett (tin bose) and Manhattan (whishey ) ere the most popular, At all good dealers. -MEUBLEIN & BRO, Hartford New York London 1911 Reo $1250 Top and Mezger Automatic Windshield Extra. Four-passenger Roadster same price. This handsome thoroughbred four-cylinder car Without regard to is now ready for delivery. price, it is the car you want. Handsome indeed! Handsome in appearance, as the picture merely suggests. Handsome in what counts most—get-there-and-back ability; no matter how beautiful a car may be when standing in your garage, it does not appear so when something has gone wrong twenty miles from home. The Reo “Thirty” is as ‘handsome’ in its mechanical design and de- tails as in its exterior. Every Reo ever built is absolutely depended upon to do its work. Public performance has proven it beyond question, and owners know it for themselves. Hunt up this car quickly. It will do all you want and will look all you want. It isa through-and-through handsome, luxurious and satisfactory car. The 1911 Reo is not changed in essential design from 1910; but it has all the improvements that the automobile season has suggested. We can deliver now quite promptly; but judging from the 1910 de- mand (especially the last part of the season) our, factory will be taxed to meet the call for 1911 Reos. . 1911 Four-cylinder Runabout $850. Send for catalog which tells what and why. R M Owen & Co Lansing Michigan General Sales Agents for Reo Motor Car Co Licensed under Selden Patent Part horse, part cow, part sheep, part Observing ? Her Jaugh was half a whinny: woman: I'd better get some good clean blood And make her partly human!" Edmund Vance Cooke. au Tur Man: Did you notice that woman we just passed? uz Woman: The one with blonde puffs and a fur hat and a military cape, who was dreadfully made up, and had loves on? Tur Max: Yes, that one. Tur Womax: No, I didn’t notice her. Why?—Cleveland Leader, comicbooks.com