Life, 1915-01-21 · page 35 of 44
Life — January 21, 1915 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines satire with pharmaceutical advertising. The left column mocks Moses Wohl, a real New York centenarian who attributed his longevity to cigars, beer, and avoiding medical advice—practices that directly contradicted early 20th-century health orthodoxy. Life magazine's satirical point: Wohl's existence threatens entire industries built on medical interventions, diets, and sanitariums. The humor lies in imagining the economic catastrophe if his lifestyle actually worked. The right side ironically undercuts this satire through a massive Sanatogen advertisement featuring endorsements from celebrities (novelist Gilbert Parker, reformer Lady Henry Somerset, naturalist John Burroughs) and claims of 21,000 physician endorsements. The advertisement essentially sells the opposite lifestyle—a commercial health product promising vigor. The page's irony is unintentional: Life satirizes medical-industrial fearmongering while being surrounded by the very marketing that exemplifies it, demonstrating how advertising shaped health narratives in this era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EIFE When— THE EARLY DAYS OF A SELF-MADE MAN We Should Worry HAT can be done with a man like Moses Wohl, a New Yorker, who recently celebrated his hundredth birthday, and who gave, in the Times, as his recipe for a long life the ‘Smoking of an average of eight cigars a day, and several pipcfuls of strong tobacco, drinking a few glasses of beer with his meals, play- ing pinochle every night, taking long walks, climbing up four flights of stairs’ occasionally instead of riding vp in an elevator, and, in general, keeping amused doing what he likes and avoiding worry about his health. Moses Wohl ought to be investi- gated. He is a menace to society. He has never been on a diet. He prob- ably doesn’t know what the word hygiene means. We'll bet he has never been inoculated with any serum. He has never been in a sanitarium. No specialist or “system” has cured him of anything. He never met a microbe face to face. What industries would perish if the scheme of life practiced by Moses Prevents Decay Dentists advise its use 120,000 copies pry?) 4° CRAMB'S GERMANY and ENGLAND ceded to be the ablest, fairest book on the sources of the wary Hithly commended by Joseph H. Choate and the lire Lord Roberts. jet $1.00 E.P. DUTTON & CO., cs: zahten | Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P., the famous novelist and statesman, writes— “T have used your Sanstogen with extraonfinary benefit. Sanstogen 18, to my minds a true food toale, feeding the perven Increating ihe energy and giving ies vigor to werworked Lody end mind."* h |—and when Lady Henry Somerset,...., the noted social reform advccate, “™ writes— Da paeatto nanny havevatcyes te chert oa peels Shake nervous Syeematod been combate yendermined, and I have proved Saaatogen to be most ' —and when John Burroughs, the cele- brated naturalist, says in one of his characteristic deters “Devel pe cont eer tan fetava year ge cad uy mind and strength are much Improved." —when scores of other famous people write in a similar strain—and when more than 21,000 physicians, after watching Sanatogen’s influence upon thousands of cases, write letters to tell how they have seenit rebuild shattered systems, and re- call lost appetite and slumber and re- charge the whole nervous system with a new vigor and a new elasticity. —when you think of this wonderful testimony—when you think of the years that Sanatogen has been before the med- ical profession and of the unequaled fj tribute paid it in medical journals and }j text-books—how can you refuse to try Sanatogen, if your nerves need help—re- fuse to give it a chance to help you to better health as it has so many others? Sanatogen is sold by good druggists every- where in three sizes, from $1.00 up. Grand Prize, International Congress of Medicine, London, 1913 Sor Elbert Hubbard's new book—‘‘Health in the Making.’ ith hi: Written in his attractive manner and filled shrewd philosophy together with capital advice on Sanatogen, health and contentment. It is FREE. Tear this of as a reminder to address THE BAUER CHEMICAL CO. » 24-E Irving Place, New York. Wohl should become known and should be practiced! Hygienists would have to make an honest living. The medical profession would dwindle and all specialists would perish. Cente- narians would be as common as daisies in. spring. Good-naturedness Sa substitute for real ability, good- naturedness is not to be despised. Indeed, is there any known quality for which it may not successfully act as a substitute? A political economist, if he be good-natured, may even be borne with, We feel, in general, kindly toward philosophers. They are usually hi less and offer us no particular frict of the sort that adds to our daily round of irritabilities. But what about an ill-natured philosopher? Good-naturedness keeps many a man in his job and enables him to support his folks decently, when otherwise there would be no excuse for him. It is one of the most important of human assets.