Life, 1921-03-24 · page 11 of 34
Life — March 24, 1921 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains four cartoon panels (numbered 7-10) satirizing miraculous or supernatural "cures" and dubious medical remedies popular in the early 20th century. The panels mock: 1. A man grinding teeth at a machine—likely satirizing pain-relief devices 2. A woman with children and supernatural imagery—mocking faith healing 3. Men using psychic or magnetic healing techniques on patients 4. A mysterious "Percolator of Fate" allegedly combining past and future Below is a humorous fictional narrative called "Soap Cycle" about a bar of soap claiming miraculous cleaning powers, sold through exaggerated testimonials. This parodies the era's common "miracle product" advertising culture where soap manufacturers, medicine shows, and questionable healers made outlandish curative claims to credulous customers. The satire targets both fraudulent vendors and the public's desperate belief in magical solutions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
FE Id- he Morch 24 By the aid of a psychic gesture filched in happier days from a blind Miracle Man, Cross-eyed Mike heals the Spavined foot and the sin-stained soul of the Marquis de Mauvais Ocuf. perfect To: 10 And so in the tangled Percolator of Fate, the broken melody of Yestere'en is welded into the Adagio of a morrow. (Passed by the National Board of Vacuum Cleaners.) Soap Cycle WAS a long, white bar of soap. Hinkle, the soap salesman, sold me to Jones, the druggist. Jones passed me over the counter to a man named Mace, who wore adirty, checked suit. Mace took me home and cut me into thin slices; then he wrapped me in tin foil, and labeled me “Bunyon's Famous Spot Remover.” Mace was a “street man,” and he ex- tolled my virtues to the crowd, over his tripod. “T'm goin’ to show you again, ladies an’ Ben'lemen, the most marvelous discovery of this modern an’ scientific age. I have here Bunyon’s Famous Spot Remover, which will clean everything but sin. Just dip the Spot Remover in water, rub it on the spot, and presto!—whether the spot is of grease, ink, iodine, fat or oil, Bun- yon's will remove it. Now for to-day, and to-day only—merely as an advertisement— I am offering—” Jones, the druggist, who had been listen- ing, bought a few slices of me. He took me to his shop, and I lay on the counter for about a week. Hinkle, the soap sales- man, coming back to the drug store for a reorder, bought a piece of me. He put me into his pocket, and carried me to a tailor friend of his. The tailor took off my tin-foil wrapper, dipped me in water, and poised me over the ironing-board. ‘Tis sad indeed—here I was, cleaning the dirty, checked suit of Mace, the “street man.” N. J. Strauss. His Tum HAT clerk you all know died and approached the pearly gates. “Give me a seat in the front row,” he demanded of St. Peter. . “Sorry,” said the hoary gatekeeper. “Heaven's all sold out, but I can give you something just as good.” NCE more d. come the question of the hour. ight saving has be- comicbooks.com