Life — October 9, 1913 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "A New Use For Children" This satirical article critiques unethical medical testing practices. The text describes how the Lederie Antitoxin Laboratories announces that vaccine virus prepared by them has been "physiologically tested on children" — presented as a matter-of-fact business development. The accompanying illustration shows two women and a child in a domestic setting, captioned "A Chair Designed for Spinsters." The satire appears to conflate this casual announcement about child test subjects with the broader treatment of children as disposable experimental material. The article's tone is deliberately understated, making the horror of using children as unwitting test subjects the implicit joke. The text warns that such "careless" practices could turn "active and potent" products into inactive ones, framing the danger to children in terms of pharmaceutical efficacy rather than ethics.