2009-10-25
Explanation
This comic contrasts medieval and modern medicine in three panels. In the first panel, a medieval doctor tells a king: "M'lord, you have a fatness of ye arse." The second panel shows the doctor being lowered toward a guillotine blade, implying he is about to be executed for delivering the unflattering diagnosis. The third panel, labeled "Modern Doctors," shows a doctor telling a prime minister: "Mr. Prime Minister, you have acute steatopygia."
The joke is about how medical terminology has evolved to serve a diplomatic function. "Steatopygia" is a real medical term that literally means excessive fat accumulation on the buttocks -- it is the exact same diagnosis the medieval doctor gave, just wrapped in Greek-derived jargon. The medieval doctor was executed for being blunt about the king's fat rear end, while the modern doctor delivers the same news safely because it sounds clinical and respectable. The comic suggests that one of the key innovations of modern medicine is not better treatments, but better euphemisms that let doctors tell powerful people uncomfortable truths without getting killed.
The votey panel shows someone saying "Yes, doctors used stone tablet with quills. Shutup." -- a preemptive, exasperated response to anyone who might point out the historical anachronism of the medieval doctor using a quill and stone tablet rather than period-appropriate writing materials. It is a self-aware acknowledgment by the cartoonist that the historical details are not the point.