Life, 1914-11-05 · page 12 of 48
Life — November 5, 1914 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon ("Watch Your Hat and Coat"):** This cartoon depicts four well-dressed men in medical or professional attire observing a woman being examined or treated. The caption suggests concern about theft or loss of personal belongings—likely satirizing the medical profession's trustworthiness or the chaotic conditions of medical practice during this period. **"The Very Latest" Section:** This article mocks a German physiologist named Alderhalden who claimed to have discovered a revolutionary diagnostic method. The satire ridicules the tendency of medical professionals to promote dubious "new" techniques, suggesting doctors extract animal organs to match patient organs for diagnosis—an absurdly impractical idea presented as cutting-edge science. **Bottom Photo:** A Thanksgiving-themed image with caption about "guys like dat" starting the holiday, likely depicting poor or immigrant families.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: “WATCH YOUR HAT AND CoAT” The Very Latest I HE ingenuity of the medical profession in experiments on animals is supposed to have reached a limit. According to calculations based upon the law of numbers, no more combinations were possible. When, therefore, a doctor comes forward and proves to the world that there is still another combination which has hitherto been over- looked, he is naturally hailed as a new transcendent med- ical geniu’ Such a person is the eminent German physiologist, Abderhalden, whose name, declares the Scientific American Supplement, will, provided his theory be proved true, “have its indelible place in the golden book of humanity's greatest men”, This eminent man’s theory, stripped of the technical terms without which no physiologist is worthy of the name, is what may be called simple, without being ornate, or what Shakespeare calls “rich but not gaudy”, Read care- fully, therefore, what follows, in order that you may grasp the great meaning of it. ‘ach organ of the body has its own ferment; that is, its own system of government—its mayor, board of alder- ‘men, local police, ete. Remembering this, we now pass on to the modus operandi, again quoting from the Scientific American Supplement: “Some one comes to his doctor complaining of strong and continuous headaches accompanied by in- somnia. The examination reveals no symptom per- mitting a definite diagnosis. The doctor takes a small quantity of blood from the patient and distributes it in a number of test tubes. Into each test tube is then put a piece from a different organ of the animal used for control; a piece of brain matter, a piece of liver, of the lung, of the kidneys, of the heart, the thymus and of the thyroid gland, as the | patient's headache may have the most various causes.” Absurdly simple. Each “ piece” What then happens? of the animal will show the condition of the correspond- ing organ in the patient. This is done by the ratio of * decomposition. Presumably, under this great system, every doctor will have to have an animal for every patient, doubtless to be “cut up while you wait This is the last word in diagnosis, in which, as we are assured by the writer already quoted from, “ Medical science enters upon a new epoch.” Neutrality HE question is not, Do we like Germany? The ques- tion is, Do we like anyone else? The question is, Shall France, England, Belgium and the neighbors gener- ally be thrust under foot to give Germans due room in the earth? Neutrality is promoted by a condition of the mind which likes more than one of the participants in a war. We are blamed by the German apologists for not heing indifferent to the destruction of England, France and Relgium. If that is blameworthy we are guilty. We arc not even indifferent to the destruction of Germany, We would deplore that, too, and shall with due noise if it becomes imminent. All these combatants are important to us. We wish to save them all. That is our neutrality. sey ween yet “1 GUESS IT WAS GUYS LIKE DAT WOT STARTED T'ANKSGIVIN' DAY, JIMMY"