Hilarity In The Healing Arts

It is universally agreed that the practice of Medicine is the grimmest among all known human professions, with the possible exception of unusual jobs like ‘full time flogger in a Middle Eastern Sultanate’, or ‘a junior janitor in a money-starved mental asylum’. However, paradoxically, there is more humor connected with medicine than with any other occupation, as anecdotes and jokes keep flowing incessantly from both ends of the stethoscope. The doctors subconsciously think up hilarious one-liners while listening to a garrulous patient making an unceasing narration of unrelenting ailments. The patients for their part, mentally create unkind but funny jokes on their doctor, after experiencing a 2 minute consultation, following a 3-hour wait,and paying a 4 figure fee, and at the end of the ordeal getting eased out of the clinic by a grumpy nurse nourished to bursting point on free samples of tonics and protein supplements.

And then, there is not a joke book you can read, which hasn’t got a fat chapter on ‘Doctor jokes’. How come that is happening?,  you may well ask. Humour and laughter are a safety valve in most stressful life situations, especially health related ones, and are a great help in reducing mental tension. While treatment relieves pain and distress, humor acts as an antidote to anxiety. It gives a proper perspective to suffering. It helps one see suffering as a painful but passing reality. Hence the widely applauded view that a humorist is the nutty but happy younger brother of a bright but miserable philosopher; whereas the philosopher poses as a super intellectual laughing at death, the humorist is laughing his head off at life and the antics of the philosopher.

It is my intention to post humorous write-ups on an array of funny topics culled from medicine’s vast literature; an amusing and vague assortment - ranging from one on ‘Medical practice in aboriginal times’ (with home visits delayed by the healer having to walk, as the wheel was yet to be invented), to ‘Recent developments in bedpan design’ (with FM radio attachment providing pro-peristaltic drum music, but batteries are extra).

This is just my feeble attempt to cheer up readers in these forbidding times, when one has to worry about possible death by corona infection after unthinkingly scratching one’s itchy unmasked nose on a dusty public footpath, or smelling a mango at the Farmers’ Market to ensure its quality, little realizing that the last smeller of that fruit was the Chief Indian importer of snake oil from China, was just back from Wuhan, and nasally dribbling the original and pristine Chinese virus.

Read on and make your comments. Make them funny. I could do with some cheering up! Emojis are welcome, but seldom suffice. Just shows you have a functioning little finger. And your appreciation is merely motor and not sensory.

I.  ABORIGINAL MEDICINE

Early humans were essentially nomadic hunter-gatherers, moving through virgin forests and fertile river banks, consuming anything, plant or animal, that appeared remotely edible and didn’t move when chewing, and did not chew back. Animal carcass of every kind, natural or man made, with or without expiry date, was consumed except the ones discarded by vultures as indigestible. Travel was slow as square wheels impaired rapid movement and by the time the Doctor arrived the patient was well. Cooking was out of the question as fire could not be created and forest fires were unreliable and uncontrollable (as is the case today in Sydney and California). But It was exciting culinary experimentation all the time, and many perished eating exotic mushroom salads or pickled puffer fish. Fast foods were much loved but rare, as they were difficult to access. Fast foods ran at anything up to 70 miles an hour, and cheetah brain was a highly coveted delicacy eaten in the company of the late hunter’s recent widow, and the fun extending late into the night hours, between post-prandial belches.

Little is known of their maladies as there are no records; this is quite understandable as they had no language to speak of (or ‘speak in’, for that matter), and all communication was by guttural noises and bodily gestures. Women did most of the talking with a vocabulary limited to ‘yes’ or ‘not now, lusty beast’. For patients, It was difficult to communicate even simple symptoms like ‘constipation’ or ‘erectile dysfunction’, without resorting to unsavory sounds accompanied by lewd gestures. This caused much mirth among the youth in the group but the elders were far from pleased, as they suffered from both these ailments, morning and night. In small caves with no cross ventilation, tempers and temperatures always ran high, often leading to violence. Looking at their plainer aboriginal females with bone-honed nose rings and pyorrhea, the saner elders often wondered whether it was worth all the trouble.

As far as one can surmise, most health issues among these Stone Age aborigines were stone related - kidney stones, gall stones, stumbling over stones, crushed by stones, assault by stones, and getting stoned after a massive dose of some naturally brewed brew. Inter tribal fights were common and as they usually lived within a stone's throw off one another, battle wounds were a daily occurrence. As a final insult, living in close proximity to wild animals making a variety of loud noises at night, many were rendered stone deaf; and the rest tone deaf.

One disease was conspicuously absent and that was dhobie itch (fungal infection in one’s intimate regions causing ultimate itching calling for sublimate scratching); this is easily explained as there were no clothes to wash as nobody wore any. It was all dry cleaning for everyone, except when it rained.

Pregnancy was viewed as some magical happening and the man’s hunky-dory role early in the process remained disconnected from the result. That a woman suddenly for no reason started swelling up around her middle and after a time delivered with much attendant din, a wailing milk-sucking miniature hominid, was attributed to mischief by naughty nocturnal ghosts. It was all so dark within the caves, anything appeared possible. ("The greatest single discovery made by man was the realisation that babies have human fathers. And were not shoved into the woman by an unseen God" - H.L. Mencken)

The stone-age denizens had a very elementary pharmacopeia created after massive uncontrolled human trials, basing on time-tested trial and error method, with many a proponent dying and proving posthumously he had erred. The approach was most whimsical and empirical - like elephant hide dressing for elephantiasis, rabbit gonads for impotence, and pellets of bullshit for hypochondriacs. Violent psychiatric cases were subjected to trepanning by creating holes in the skull to let out evil spirits. (Fact). Split personalities needed two holes. Intact skulls of popular un-trepanned ancestors were used to hold-in stimulant sprits to symbolize extended post- mortal intoxication. There was no anesthesia but the patient fainted after one look at the instruments. A small cylinder of solid rock was always available to counteract any violent protest by the patient, and to facilitate total cooperation. Patients ceased all violent activities postoperatively, and even routine activities like breathing and cursing.

As Dr.Richard Gordon, the doyen among medical humor writers put it “The history of medicine is largely a substitution of ignorance by fallacies”.