Life, 1911-09-07 · page 18 of 44
Life — September 7, 1911 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes local Boards of Health as ineffectual bureaucracies composed of washed-up, unintelligent citizens. The text argues these boards operate in secrecy, staffed by people "drained of all sympathy, charity and common sense"—essentially society's least useful members. The satire targets the board president (always the leading doctor) for orchestrating public panic about epidemics, coercing vaccinations, and issuing hollow reassurances that "the situation is now under control." The author mocks their theatrical management of public health crises. The three illustrated figures above represent types being critiqued—likely depicting the pompous, disconnected nature of these board members. This reflects early 20th-century skepticism about both medical authority and local government competence, attacking public health institutions as self-serving theater rather than genuine disease prevention.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*LIF Be WOULD YOU WISH YOUR DAUGHTER TO MARRY A MAN LIke THIS? reputable newspapers you are likely to find that their most ardent editorials on public questions are dictated by a capitalist with political or social ambitions, or with Wall Street interests which need boosting or immunity from attack. Therefore read the newspapers only for the smallest modicum of news and question the veracity of that if you can imagine any reason for its being colored. But I fear that in my anxiety to make you in every way a perfect man I grow too prolix and serious. I dwell on the intellectual side of your development, but, believe me, I would not have you neglect the graces. I trust that wherever you may be traveling just now you are mingling with only the very best people. I am told that at present it is quite de rigueur at Newport to have monkeys as dinner guests. For- vunately you do not have to make a monkey of yourself to be invited, as do many persons of less assured position than yours. Personally, I should not care to sit at table with a monkey; but perhaps in Newport the hosts find the simians more nearly their mental equals. I am pleased to know that your financial tutor, Mr. Thaler- macher, finds in you so ready a pupil. I am not entirely ready to admit that he is right in holding that you should mark the aces in the poker-deck when you are going to play with a mem- ber of the New York Stock Exchange, but for one of your age this is perhaps only a reasonable precaution. I hope that your affaires de cocur are progressing satisfac torily. Remember, though, that although the two pieces of paper may resemble each other rather closely in size and gen- cral appearance, a decree of divorce is more costly and diffi- cult to secure taan a marriage certificate. Adieu. Let me have news of you by next post. Cuesteerienn. Another Contest Next Week I next week's Lire will begin another contest, a prize of one hundred dollars being offered for the best title to a picture. This picture, by the way, will be published in only two issues of Lire, September 14 and September 21. Those Boards of Health Every Town Has One, of Which the Leading Doctor Is Usually President—No Worse Disease N every town of any importance in this country there is a local institution known as the “ Board of Health.” No- body has ever seen a Board of Health, and only knows about it at such times as it is in action, and it always works under cover. A Board of Health is composed of certain leading citi- zens who have passed their usefulness in other directions. The process of time having slowly drained them of all sympa- thy, all charity and common sense, they at last arrive at that proud moment where they are fit to become members of the Board of Health. They are never more heard 6f as indi- viduals, but only as members of the Board of Health, and even in this respect their identity is carefully concealed from the public. If you know any man who for stupidity, lack of common sense, conventional timidity and intense respectabil- ity is living in your town, you will find, upon carefully in- vestigating, that he has long been a member of the Board of Health. The president of the Board of Health is always the lead- ing doctor. It is his business to arrange in advance for all epidemics, to scare people to death if necessary by public an- nouncements, to vaccinate helpless children, to brow-beat parents, and to announce at suitable moments that the “ situa- tion is now under control.” Beside this august individual, reinforced by his trained band of subordinates, the authoritics always take a back seat. There is no greater or more destructive disease than a Board of Health. Other maladies are more or less transient. With courage, firmness and a reasonable amount of fortitude, there is scarcely anything that happens to normal human be- ings that Nature will not cure. But a Board of Health is a perpetual menace to the human race. It magnifies the slight- est rumor and imposes the rule of the dark ages on a terror- stricken community. Boards of Health are responsible for about every “health” evil there is; they started the germ theory, the serum fad, the smallpox scare, but worse than any of these, they impose by fear a species of thraldom that the dark ages have never equaled. Kept alive by superstition, fed on nar- row prejudices and encouraged to persist by tommon coward- ice, they are almost the worst pest that we have to contend against. “THE GREAT DIVIDE” comicbooks.com