In 1898 in the second issue of the magazine Vim, artist Leon Barritt (1851 to 1938) published his cartoon “The Big Type War of the Yellow Kids.” He depicted newspaper magnates Joseph J. Pulitzer (1847 to 1911, left) and William Randolph Hearst (1863 to 1951, right) fighting over stacked toy blocks spelling out “WAR.” (Both publishers had been accused of hyperbolic news coverage of events leading to and happening during the Spanish-American War.) Each newspaper titan is outfitted by cartoonist Barritt in the garb of the Yellow Kid, the cartoon character of another artist who was enticed by Hearst away from Pulitzer’s staff. The Yellow Kid became iconic for the “yellow journalism” of the day, which trumpeted sensational headlines based on scanty amounts of journalistic research. While competing for readers, reporters for Pulitzer and for Hearst helped change the course of anesthesia’s history by sensationally headlining anesthetic complications, such as death and insanity (hypoxic brain damage). (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
In 1898 in the second issue of the magazine Vim, artist Leon Barritt (1851 to 1938) published his cartoon “The Big Type War of the Yellow Kids.” He depicted newspaper magnates Joseph J. Pulitzer (1847 to 1911, left) and William Randolph Hearst (1863 to 1951, right) fighting over stacked toy blocks spelling out “WAR.” (Both publishers had been accused of hyperbolic news coverage of events leading to and happening during the Spanish-American War.) Each newspaper titan is outfitted by cartoonist Barritt in the garb of the Yellow Kid, the cartoon character of another artist who was enticed by Hearst away from Pulitzer’s staff. The Yellow Kid became iconic for the “yellow journalism” of the day, which trumpeted sensational headlines based on scanty amounts of journalistic research. While competing for readers, reporters for Pulitzer and for Hearst helped change the course of anesthesia’s history by sensationally headlining anesthetic complications, such as death and insanity (hypoxic brain damage). (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator and Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
