So, at work this morning, while I was standing next to the printer waiting for it to “warmup,” I found an old book on a nearby shelf and began to flip through it. What do you know, the book was “Medical Illustrations of the Digestive System, Vol. 1,” my favorite book, like ever.
Inside the book are endless, colorful illustrations depicting every imaginable disease and condition, in all their vivid 1960s hand-drawn, illustrated glory. Every image, of course, for clinical reasons I’d guess, is drawn with the human subjects disrobed.
Around page 60 the liver diseases start up. You know the page on alcoholism is coming. Then, on page 78 it finally reveals itself.
Okay, a few questions and observations. Why can’t the alcoholic be clothed? Is a man ever going to come into the ER or a doctor’s office while he’s drinking? No. Only when he starts having serious health problems that are inhibiting his drinking will the alcoholic drag himself to receive medical care. This guy looks fit as a fiddle.
Also, is it not in poor taste to place the sick naked kid on the very same page as the manchild-looking sot? Even if Kwashiorkor, a strange tropical disease, presents with symptoms very similar to alcoholism, could the child not have be on another page? Basically, they are trying to say that not only are alcoholics wreck-less dysfunctional members of society who can barely muster the composure to put clothes on, they like naked children too.
If it’s any consolation to the drunkard, the man pictured does look quite jolly. Shouldn’t the illustrator have gone for a more miserable tableaux? What I see says, “while alcoholism may leave your liver in shambles, being drunk is a raging good time!”
