Life, 1915-06-03 · page 11 of 52
Life — June 3, 1915 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page illustrates a grim narrative about Edward Johnson, a twelve-year-old boy from Washington, N.Y. The three panels depict different scenarios involving romantic or social encounters with a young woman, captioned "Those Who Are in Love with Her." The accompanying text reveals the dark purpose: Johnson contracted smallpox and died within four days. The article documents that doctors initially misdiagnosed his illness as blood poisoning, then typhoid meningitis, before concluding vaccination caused his death. This appears to be a cautionary editorial piece about vaccination dangers and misdiagnosis, using the illustration's ambiguous title and romantic framing ironically—the "love" potentially refers to careless medical attention rather than romance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Murder EPwarp JOHNSON, aged twelve, was a happy child, playing in the highways and byways of Bingham- As far as anyone could see, he was in perfect health. Then some- body was seized with the fear that he might get smallpox, although there was no smallpox anywhere in the THOSE WHO ARE IN LOVE WITH HER vicinity. He was then turned over to. a doctor, who performed a certain un- rite called vaccination, which y believed to be able clean was once gener: to prevent smallpox. Eight days thereafter little Edward Johnson became very ill, His breath- ing was much labored, and paralysis of the throat was a prominent symp- tom. In four more days he was dead. This case was so flagrant that the doctors and laymen fell to quarreling over it. First it was diagnosed as Mood poison. Then it was diagnosed as typhoid meningitis, but some of the doctors were frank enough to agree with the plain, common-sense inference that death was caused by vaccination. comicbooks.com