Life, 1915-10-14 · page 32 of 44
Life — October 14, 1915 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page contains two satirical pieces: **Top cartoon**: A domestic dispute where a woman (Isabel) blames her fiancé for their four-year engagement delay, saying "you talked me into it"—a joke about male persuasiveness in romance backfiring. **Main article ("Scaring the Populace")**: Critiques Pasteur Institutes for exploiting public fear of rabies. Dr. Dulles argues these institutions deliberately amplify hydrophobia panic to drum up paying patients, making unwarranted cure promises and dire prognoses. The satire suggests the institutes profit from fear itself rather than genuine treatment. **Bottom joke**: Defines a "misogynist" as any man married over ten years—typical period cynicism about marriage. The Pasteur Institute critique reflects genuine late-19th/early-20th century tension between emerging scientific medicine and commercial exploitation of medical fears.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“ISABEL, DO YOU REALIZE THAT IT'S JUST FOUR YEARS TO-DAY SINCE WE BECAME ENGAGED?” “WELL, IT WAS YOUR OWN FAULT. Scaring the Populace CCORDING to Dr. Charles W. Dulles, a prominent physician of Philadelphia, the statistics of deaths from hydrophobia show that they have increased in every country where Pasteur Institutes have been widely exploited. He says further: One reason for this is that the heads of these institu- tions not only promise cures without warrant, but make equally unwarranted prognoses of fatal issue. Sometimes the latter exert a most unfavorable influence on the patient. An unfavorable influence on the patient, perhaps, but a very favorable influence on the Pasteur Institutes, for the patient is thus induced to exchange his money for the Pas- teur treatment, and that is the summum bonum, There must be kept alive among the people a mortal terror of hydro- phobia, or else Pasteur Institutes will cease to be profitable and perish from the earth. “QAY, father, what is a misogynist?” “Any man, my son, who has been married over ten years.” YOU TALKED ME INTO IT!” THE DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY comicbooks.com