The Wasp — 1890 — page 429: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes patent medicine fraud, a major concern of the era. The "Doctor Pills" storefront features a grotesquely grinning quack doctor, while skeletal "spirits of the departed" (ghosts representing the dead) emerge from the building. A group of men outside appear skeptical or concerned. The joke is bitterly dark: the cartoon suggests that "Doctor Pills" and similar quack remedies actually *kill* patients rather than cure them, turning them into spirits. The spirits then mockingly ask the living customers "how did you enjoy yourselves?"—implying they too will soon join the dead. This reflects genuine Progressive-era anxieties about unregulated patent medicines, many containing dangerous substances, that preyed on desperate sick people. The cartoon advocates for medical regulation and consumer protection.