Life, 1915-10-21 · page 25 of 52
Life — October 21, 1915 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon ("How the Dust Looks to the Germ Crank"):** A man frantically kicks away from swirling germs and dust particles. This illustrates the article's satire about germ theory and hay fever "cures." **Article ("Food for the Credulous"):** This is sharp satire attacking a proposed hay fever treatment—injecting pollen serum developed by Dr. Henri Iskowitz. The author mockingly calls it "medical necromancy" (quackery) that profits doctors while offering patients false hope. The satire's bite: if the treatment works, credit the serum; if it fails, blame the patient—never the doctor or medicine. The author sarcastically suggests trying it repeatedly or switching to other dubious remedies by doctors with ridiculous names like "Halfwits or Nowits." **Bottom Cartoon:** A clergyman sits with a woman in a buffet, initially to scold her cocktail-drinking but stays all day—implying he becomes charmed or distracted. The page mocks both medical quackery and credulous patients who fall for pseudoscientific treatments.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HOW THE DUST LOOKS TO THE GERM CRANK Food for the Credulous Au ye sufferers from hay fever draw nigh, listen to the latest patent cure and draw therefrom what con- solation ye can, Somebody having guessed that hay fever is caused by the pollen of certain plants, it is proposed to gather the pollen of twenty or so of the most suspicious plants and brew it into a serum in the approved manner of modern medical necromancy. This serum is then to be injected between the shoulders in fifteen doses at intervals of from three to five days, beginning about eight weeks before the so-called hay-fever season. All this is to be found in an article in the Medical Record, by Dr. Henri Iskowitz. The object, of course, in addition to providing a profitable business for the doctors, is to make the victim immune from hay fever. The doctors’ profits are sure, but you have to take chances on the im- munity. If you want permanent immunity you must take treatments for several successive years. Then we are told that there is a difference in patients. Some carry their immunity over to the second season, others do not. Then, of course, some people do not carry it at all. But in every case of failure the trouble is to be found with the patient, never with the serum or the doctor. The only sure way for a sufferer to get at the truth of this matter is to try it. If you try it and the hay fever does not come, then, if you wish, you can give all the credit to the serum. But if you try it and the hay fever does come, then you can try it again and again, or else you can try some other absurd concoction that is offered on the authority of some Dr. Iskowitz or Mistywits or Putty- wits or Halfwits or Nowits. EO. J. Little M Sat ina Putting some cocktails away. The rector soon spied her And sat down to chide her— And stayed there the rest of the day. comicbooks.com