Life — October 17, 1930 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This is a **public health advertisement**, not satire or political cartoon. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is promoting diphtheria immunization for infants. The image shows a mother holding a six-month-old baby. The text emphasizes that diphtheria was historically a major child killer—"forty years ago" it killed six times as many babies as it does currently. The advertisement credits organized public health campaigns with this success, noting that cities conducting aggressive immunization programs reduced diphtheria deaths by 13.5%, while less active cities saw only a 9% decrease. The ad urges mothers to take their babies to doctors for immunization at six months, framing it as a simple, safe procedure. It's essentially corporate-sponsored public health messaging encouraging vaccination—a striking contrast to modern vaccine hesitancy debates.