Life, 1922-01-26 · page 31 of 34
Life — January 26, 1922 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes a pseudo-scientific claim that food can be absorbed through skin pores if the air contains nutrients. The article humorously extrapolates this absurd premise to ridiculous conclusions: bathing in consommé instead of eating breakfast, receiving meals during Turkish baths, or feeding dogs Bologna sausage by proximity. The satire mocks both the credulous acceptance of dubious scientific claims and the era's obsession with efficiency and labor-saving innovations. By imagining a world where eating becomes unnecessary and food absorption occurs accidentally (falling into asparagus beds, getting egg salad on your shoulder), the author ridicules how far people will go to avoid traditional domestic routines. The smaller cartoon reinforces this theme: a bored woman suggests inviting neighbors to dinner specifically to poison them—implying even social gatherings become suspect when efficiency-obsessed thinking dominates.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Has baby been naughty to-day?” “No, he’s been so good I almost sent for the Doctor.” The New Skin A eminent scientist declares that food can be absorbed through the pores of the skin if the atmosphere is impregnated with nutriment. Thus, if one could take the morning bath in consommé royu! or order a bouillon cube slipped into one’s Turkish bath, breakfast via alimentary channels would become a superfluity and go the way of tonsils and what-nots. To pelt a passer-by with biscuits or overripe tomatoes, after the manner of the old school, might give the victim a stomach ache. and one might easily get ptomaine poisoning by hold- ing « section of Bologna sausage for the Airedale. consider the saving involved in receiving a table d’hote meal with your Turkish bath, a four-course luncheon, with choice of dessert, with your shampoo. “Sir,” the rubber-waiter might be pleased to remark agrecably, “did you have egg salad for lunch? It’s all over your shoulder.” In spite of certain unavoidable social complications, how rating the life of the man with the epidermis gastro- ! The breakfast shower! The shampoo-lunch! The delicious “between-meals” bite caused by the tumble into the asparagus bed! What a life! What a bountiful dame Mother Nature is getting to be! Hands off the “skin you love to touch!” You are making the poor girl feel like a soda mint! There is one other aspect of the situation not to be over- looked by any thinking man. Who knows, perhaps we could get the same old effect by bathing in methylated alcohol or by swimming in the Chicago river! “By Jove! Mary, this sitting around waiting for a prac- ticé is getting on my nerves.” “Couldn’t we invite the neighbors to dinner and give them something that would disagree with them?” comicbooks.com