InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You Say!"

jlroberson (jlroberson) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-27 07:48:00

Current location:	Seattle
Current mood:	blah
Current music:	William Burroughs at Naropa: Class on Joseph Conrad.1979
Entry tags:	creator: graham ingels, publisher: ec comics, theme: history

EC Comics "New Direction" MD #1
From 1955, a bit of a rarity; a docucomic drawn by Graham Ingels. From one of EC's last sputters before the Comics Code.

I'd like to see a "history week" here.

(Post a new comment)

	thanekos 2009-09-27 02:54 pm UTC (link)
	no choke? i am disappoint (Reply to this)

ex_stig213
2009-09-27 04:08 pm UTC (link)

I recall the Temple of Asklepios being adorned with apparent success stories from its former patrons, both outlandish and realistic.

Additionally, while doctors were sill superstitious and overzealous during the time of the Crusades, their equivalents in the Middle East were ahead of them by leaps and bounds, recognising the importance of fresh fruit to the diet and finding methods of treating wounded limbs without amputation.

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	ashtoreth 2009-09-27 05:20 pm UTC (link)
	Not to mention the far east. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	thediiem 2009-09-27 04:09 pm UTC (link)
	As someone who has taken my fair share of medical history courses, the level of misinformation and outright lies seen here is hilarious. (Reply to this) (Thread)

blakeyrat
2009-09-27 05:37 pm UTC (link)

And it's really, really unfair to call doctors during the Civil War (and a century before, into the early 18th century really) "butchers." How many lives were saved by amputations?

Did they operate without anesthetics? No. (Chloroform is an anesthetic.) Was the operation extremely painful? Yes. Was the rate of success extremely low? Yes.

(But here's the most important part)

Were the odds of survival for one operated on higher than one not? Much higher.

Also: no mention of Oliver Wendall Holmes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Sr. That guy's my medical hero.

This story is basically taking a long continuum (the development of medicine) and vastly simplifying it into "no medicine" (20th century hits) "medicine!"

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	janegray 2009-09-27 10:26 pm UTC (link)
	Did they operate without anesthetics? No. (Chloroform is an anesthetic.) Was the operation extremely painful? Yes If they used anesthetics, why was the operation extremely painful? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	midnightvoyager 2009-09-27 11:10 pm UTC (link)
	Not all anesthetics are created equal. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	browbeetled 2009-09-27 06:46 pm UTC (link)
	When I am in pain, I, too, tend to say, "Sob sob." It's very therapeutic. (Reply to this)

	aaron_bourque 2009-09-27 07:56 pm UTC (link)
	Man. I was expecting some kind of twist, and then it didn't come! THAT BLEW MY MIND! (Reply to this)

psychop_rex
2009-09-28 05:23 am UTC (link)

Well, THIS is ridiculously one-sided. I mean, while a number of the things it says are TRUE - up until only a few centuries ago, any kind of surgery was an exceptionally agonizing business (hell, dentists only started using anesthetic sometime in the mid-20th century) - this seems to imply that the true study of medicine basically sprang into being full-formed sometime in the mid-1800's, following an abortive attempt by the ancient Greeks. Do tell. I'm sure all the doctors and herbalists and midwives and healers and shamans and alchemists and wise men and whatnot going back thousands and thousands of years would be VERY interested to hear that.
I fear that this is an early result of the stealthy hand of the pharmaceutical companies. Even then, its touch was felt. I mean, seriously, the amount of sheer ignorance of basic herbal and homeopathic cures displayed by your average M.D is astounding. A few years back, when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, I was prescribed a pill for the pain that barely worked at all. Luckily, my Mom had a homeopathic remedy on hand that worked about a thousand times better - and when she mentioned this to the doctor later, NOBODY IN THE ENTIRE BUILDING had heard of it!

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	jlroberson 2009-09-29 03:03 am UTC (link)
	Well, I hope no one thought I posted this thinking it was accurate! I posted it because it was EC, Ingels, and from an EC comic few have read. And judging from the rest of it...there's a reason. This is actually the highlight of the book as far as writing. However, I would also suggest this was pretty much the narrative most people believed in the 50s. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-09-29 06:51 am UTC (link)
	You mean the whole issue is like this? Gadzooks! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-09-29 08:05 am UTC (link)
	The other stories are basically doctors heroically doing their job. One story is about a doctor giving an tracheotomy to a small child who's swallowed a safety pin. Mostly pretty bland stuff. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-09-29 10:52 am UTC (link)
	So basically, the whole issue is dedicated to the family-friendly M.D version of the two-fisted scientist archetype. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-09-29 11:01 am UTC (link)
	The whole series. Like if Marcus Welby were an anthology series. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-09-29 11:30 am UTC (link)
	'Whole SERIES'? Hang on, I thought this was EC. You mean to tell me that EC Comics, purveyor of horrors for young and old, actually did a series about heroic doctors and their all-American fight against disease? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-09-29 12:13 pm UTC (link)
	Not for too long. This was part of their "new direction," partly intended to show their decent side. Guess why. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-09-29 07:51 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, I can guess, all right - but the concept is still somewhat staggering. It's like hearing that your neighborhood Hell's Angel is a bible salesman in his spare time. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-09-29 10:25 pm UTC (link)
	Actually, EC did Bible stories too! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

psychop_rex
2009-09-29 11:14 pm UTC (link)

That I'm actually not all that surprised about. I can picture them doing some great fire-and-brimstone Old Testament stuff - that seems to play more to their strengths. But doctors? THRILL! As the pediatrician prescribes a vitamin tonic for little Johnny! CHILL! As the heart specialist scolds his overweight patient for eating bacon! GASP! As the podiatrist ponders what type of orthopedic shoe is required to help Mrs. Terwilliger's flat feet! SCREAM! As the plastic surgeon deftly removes a mole from a starlet's elbow!
OK, OK, so it'd probably be more like emergency room stuff. But still, the concept of doctors doing actual MEDICINE in an EC comic, instead of giving their clients pills to drive them mad or transplanting a human brain into a gorilla's body, just seems fundamentally WRONG somehow.

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	jlroberson 2009-09-30 02:07 am UTC (link)
	No, your guess about MD is pretty accurate(try PSYCHOANALYSIS for a similar tone). As far as the Bible Stories, those were pretty tame. I got a torrent of some and maybe I'll post a few. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-09-30 02:11 am UTC (link)
	I was right? Drat! I hate it when I'm right like that. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-09-29 12:15 pm UTC (link)
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.D._(comics) (Reply to this) (Parent)