Seeing the funny side of things?

Mojon’s manual of medicine. A cartoon book for daily clinical life.

Mojon D. Berlin: Springer, 2009 (xii + 128 pp, $42.45). ISBN 978 3 540 68559 3.

And now for something completely different . . . Daniel Mojon, a Swiss professor of ophthalmology, started his “other” career as a cartoonist while attending (boring) medical school lectures. According to a preliminary page of his unique manual of medicine — which is really a cartoon book for daily clinical life — he was most probably infected with a very rare strain of Streptococcus cartoonaurius during a microbiological laboratory course.

The Manual has over 100 black-and-white cartoons divided among 13 chapters, which cover 10 medical specialties as well as congresses, the financial aspects of medicine and research. Some are based on what some might call “sick” jokes, which can be readily appreciated by most of us — particularly those who are not, themselves, the butt. For example, with respect to choice of career: “I became a pathologist because I kept turning up late to emergencies . . .” and “With your superficial character I would become a dermatologist”. Most could be considered more than a little sarcastic and a few, like the one depicted here, are simply delightful.

After graduation, Mojon’s cartooning career apparently persisted only because he kept being confronted with uninteresting meetings and conferences. In fact, he has become so well known that colleagues in need of sleep avoid sitting close to him due to the loud laughter of neighbouring attendees — perhaps something to keep in mind if you are thinking of taking this book along with you to a meeting or two.