Life, 1926-09-02 · page 12 of 41
Life — September 2, 1926 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a medical humor cartoon titled "Fair Patient: What is the Best Way of Reducing, Doctor?" The joke presents a doctor advising a woman patient to "stop eating, madam" as weight-loss advice, while the fair patient asks "but how do you do that?" The cartoon satirizes the era's simplistic medical guidance on weight reduction—essentially prescribing the obvious solution (eat less) without practical help. The humor lies in the gap between the doctor's unhelpful directive and the patient's reasonable question about *how* to actually achieve it. Below is "Mrs. Pepys Diary," a humorous column mimicking Samuel Pepys' famous diary, discussing social observations and gossip from the writer's day, including encounters at tennis parties and bridge games. The page represents typical early 20th-century satirical magazine content blending medical and social commentary.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
<a wi." Fair Patie Young M. D.: wity- August Lay late, ponderii and that, in especial how 9th Witches have come to stand as the epitome of nervousness, and why blotters enclosed with their bill e never any good, falling eagerly upon the mail when it was brought in to me, my pleasure in receiving communications when I am away from home being so great that I do even welcome commerci tidings from rug cleaners and d. merchants, albcit the treasurers of organized charities do put up to me a fine point of ethics by enclosing stamped envelopes, for I do not like to cast their tuppence into the scrap basket, nor basely divert it to my own use, nor return it to them with- out a contribution. So now when I come upon a letter which I suspect to be from such a source, I do dis- pose of it without opening it, foras- much as by that course I do not know whether or not it contains postage, and I do pray that by so doing I may never spurn the in- formation that a hitherto unheard-of tradesmen nt? WHAT IS THE BEST WAY OF REDUCING, DocTOR? STOP EATING, MADAM. Fair Patient: nut now po you vo THAT? Ups Peps Diaryr kinsman hath died and left me a legacy. A letter from the child of one of my servants, asking me to answer various questions for her about the reparations dispute so that she might acquit herself creditably in the scere! school which she is attending this summer, and one of them being, What has Mr. Mellon been doing of late to make the peo- ple angry? I did ask Sam if his own ire were up and if so, why, but he did put me off lightly, as is his cus- A WELL - TURNED ankle peeped out from the hem of her skirt, beneath tom when I demand aught which he deems beyond my comprehension, until I did twit him with evading me through lack of knowledge, which was more than his vanity could with- stand. But the incident did bring me up sharply as to the average citi- zen’s lack of interest in world af- fairs, for Lord! I do confess with shame that it is of greater moment to me that the underhangings be laundered frequently enough or the beef done to the proper turn than to keep au courant with what the min- isters of church and state are seck- ing to bring about through their in- numerable and well-nigh incompre- hensible conclaves....At noon a tennis party at the Blanks’, where I did encounter several pleasant ac- quaintances, one man hailing me with particular joy because he declared me to be the only person from whom he had seen his wife win money at bridge. Usually when she finishes play, he quoth, she comes up to me and demands, Have you got ninetecn (Continued on page 30) comicbooks.com