Life, 1915-08-05 · page 32 of 44
Life — August 5, 1915 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes naive tourists praising country air as pure and wholesome, unaware they're surrounded by disease-carrying organisms—depicted as sleeping pigs and animals in filth. The joke undercuts false pastoral romanticism with germ-theory reality. The article "Opportunities for the Young" is a scathing satire of early-20th-century germ discovery mania. It mocks ambitious doctors who could gain fame by "discovering" new microbes, suggesting the process requires only "a materially-medicated vocabulary, a vivid imagination and a convincing manner"—not actual rigor. The piece sarcastically proposes inventing diseases, corporate "germ trusts," and endlessly contradicting predecessors' findings. It implies the public's gullibility and the scientific community's uncritical acceptance enable fraudulent claims. The bottom cartoon captioned "Eugenics!" appears to joke about judging someone's weight or health against eugenic standards—though the specific reference remains unclear without fuller context.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sweety “HOW GLORIOUS IS TIIIS COUNTRY AIR—SO FREE FROM VITIATING INFLUENCES, SO LADEN WITH A SUBTLE SOMETHING!” Opportunities for the Young MBITIOUS young men who are looking about for easy ways of acquiring fame and fortune might well go into the business of discovering germs. It is already a great industry, but the limits of its possibilities are nowhere in sight. Though the entire world has suc- cumbed to the onslaughts of explorers, only a compara- tively few microbes have been tracked to their lairs by the stealthy microscope. Now is the time, young men. The public is in a most credulous state of mind, The germ theory has the floor. The other day a young doctor started out to find the germ of typhus fever. He looked where it ought to be, and there it was the very first time, although many other powerful and sincere microscopes had looked for it in vain in the same place. He told older doctors about it, and they marveled. One of the principal New York papers took it right up and declared it to be one of the most wonderful discoveries ever known to medical science, And, of course, it was, for how can we disprove it? But any young man can do likewise. All he needs is a materia- medicated vocabulary, a vivid imagination and a convinc- ing manner. There are many diseases, and there must be at least one germ for every disease. If you have found the Proper germ for an improper disease, nobody is in posi- tion to dispute you. Then, some diseases are probably caused by a co-partnership of germs who have found they can be more efficient and more virulent by working together. Perhaps some of our higher-priced diseases are caused by a corporation, or even a trust, the stocks and bonds of which are widely distributed among numerous classes of opulent germs. Thus are the possibilities of success increased, Then, after all the germs of all the diseases are discovered, it is possible to invent new dis- eases which would require new germs, And it is always possible to go over the ground again, making new dis- coveries to disprove the old ones. If your predecessor has claimed, for instance, that housemaid’s knee is caused by a long, crooked microbe with St. Vitus’s dance, you can make a counter claim that it is caused by a short, fat germ with a lymphatic temperament, To your instruments, fellows! A shuddering world awaits the results of your germ-imagining powers. Ellis O. Jones. EUGENICS! “GaADz00KS! He's HEAVIER THAN HE Loos!”