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Science, Medicine, and Anthropology
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ogy.html
Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology
2016-06-13 05:00:31
By Dana Walrath
Introduction
When I began my graphic memoir series, Aliceheimers, it focused just on
life with my mother Alice before and during dementia. But the revelatory
insight that she has retained, even during the late stages of this sickness,
has led me to sometimes let the character “Alice” metamorphose into an
odd sort of sage. Here, she and I explore the relationship between Medical
Anthropology and Graphic Medicine. Alice’s deeply held beliefs from life
before dementia combine with her mind opened by dementia, allowing me
to imagine a quasi-academic conversation that we never could have had
in real life.
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A writer, artist and anthropologist, Dana Walrath likes to cross borders and
disciplines with her work. After years of using stories to teach medical
students at University of Vermont’s College of Medicine, she turned to
writing her own. Her award winning verse novel, Like Water on Stone, was
completed during the year she spent as a Fulbright Scholar in
Armenia. Her recently released graphic memoir Aliceheimer’s has brought
her throughout North America and Eurasia to speak about the role of
comics in healing including talks at TEDx Battenkill and TEDx
Yerevan. Her recent essays have appeared in Slate and Foreign Policy.
You can visit her at danawalrath.com.
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Page 1
Panel 1 of 3.
Title: “Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology: An
exogamous marriage or paraphyletic groups?”
Image: Two kinds of family trees: comics (Mickey Mouse
ears) and medicine (medical text) combine to form graphic
medicine; biological and cultural anthropology (represented
by book spines with names of some anthropological sages
like Boas, Kroeber, Mead Leakey, Levi-Strauss) combine to
form “Medical Anthropology”. These two form “an
exogamous marriage”, or break out into “paraphyletic
groups?” Two independent family trees each with their own
history.
Byline: Dana Walrath, University of Vermont.
Panel 2 of 3.
Alice, an older woman with round face and curly hair. Her
clothes throughout the text are made up of cut-up pages
from Alice in Wonderland.
Alice points up to the panel above, says “What sort of
crazy family trees are those?”
Panel 3 of 3.
Dana, a younger woman with long hair, replies: “I’m
exploring the relationship between the things I do.”
Alice: “It would be easier if you spoke English.”
Dana: “You were a biologist. You can get it.”
Page 2
Panel 1 of 3.
Alice imagines an exoskeleton and endoskeleton, and eggs
and sperm (thinking the word “gamete”).
Alice says: “Exogamous: Like how I married Dave.”
Panel 2 of 3.
Alice imagines Greek root “para”, meaning “beside”, and
relationships among vertebrates.
Dana replies: “Yes… my father, an odar, a non-Armenian.”
Alice says: “That makes for hybrid vigour you know.” and
“Birds and Reptiles are paraphyletic.”
Panel 3 of 3.
Alice imagines a crocodile eating a bird.
Page 3
Panel 1 of 2.
Narration text: “For Alice, Biology was the central dogma…”
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Alice says: “Just because you share a common ancestor
doesn’t mean you have to get along. Take reptiles and
birds, or my sister…”
Panel 2 of 2.
Alice stands in reverie before an array of white-coated
doctors flanked by two staffs of the god Hermes, the
Caduceus, instead of the correct Rods of Aesclepius, as
though they were a pantheon of false gods.
Narration text: “…and her reverence for its designated gods
absolute.”
Page 4
Panel 1 of 4.
Narration: “A reverence rooted in shame…”
Alice, with eyes closed: “I was in a big ward in New York
hospital with lots of kids to get my tonsils out. One nurse
checked under my gown and called out to the others, “Hey,
get a load of this!” It was my home-made underwear.”
Panel 2 of 4.
Narration: “…outrage at false prophets…”
Alice, hands in the air: “They took my mother to a series of
quacks! One of them said pulling her teeth would heal her
joints so then she had no teeth. When that didn’t work they
took her to a faith healer in Niagara Falls.”
Panel 3 of 4.
Narration: “…and passed on through the generations.”
Alice: “You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for doctors.
You’ve got hybrid vigour you know, you should be a
doctor.”
Panel 4 of 4.
A fractured red cross.
Narration: “It looked like more than basic biology to me. I
saw…”
Page 5
Panel 1 of 4.
Drama: A medical soap opera on a TV. Young woman
says: “Oh, Doctor! How can I ever repay you!” Doctor
replies: “Impossible, I know, now let me check your heart
beat.”
Panel 2 of 4.
Subjugation: A pelvic exam of a very pregnant Dana.
Doctor says “You know who you remind me of, Dana?
Annie Hall.”
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Narration: That was a prenatal visit with the student health
obstetrician. I chose midwives after that.
Panel 3 of 4.
Humiliation: Dana wears an open-backed hospital gown
and stands on a scale.
Panel 4 of 4.
And super hero mumbo jumbo: Surgeon says “With my
retractor and laser scalpel I excised the aneurysm detected
on the angiogram impacting the vessels of the circle of
Willis located precisely at A. cerebri media thus mitigating
the subarachnoid…”
Page 6
Panel 1 of 2.
Narration: “My cortisol levels ran high until I discovered
medical anthropology.” An outline of Dana in a hospital
gown opening a door with medical anthropology texts and
insights found behind the door. Dana thinks “Liberation
with an academic spit shine.”
Panel 2 of 2.
A rocket ship taking off. Launchpad scaffolding made of
words that are part of the scientific approach of
biomedicine: technology, scientists, data, power,
experiments, research, fight, engineering, thruster, booster,
conquer, go where no man has gone before, cure, fight,
conquer, booster, experiment, engineering, biomechanics,
microbes, invaders, viruses, conquer, fight, research.
Narration: “A society’s medical system reflects its core
beliefs. Our technological system is rooted in the deep
scientific tradition of overcoming nature.”
Page 7
Panel 1 of 2.
Alice very annoyed, shaking a finger and frowning. Alice
says “What are you doing, Dana?!? This is very
disrespectful. The idea that medicine is just a bunch of
beliefs and practices and not pure science is absurd. I told
you this anthropology business was a bad idea, that you’d
never get a job. You should have gone to medical school
and become a doctor then you’d know what’s what!”
Narration: “No one likes their beliefs challenged.”
Panels 2 through 9 of 9. Argument back and forth between Alice
and Dana.
Dana: “Medical schools like to hire anthropologists.”
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Alice: “What on earth for!”
Dana: “Accreditation now requires training students to care
for diverse patients.”
Alice: “Bodies are all alike! It’s only minds that differ.”
Dana: “You sound just like an old school doctor.”
Alice: “Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say.”
Dana: “But mind body dualism is just a social construct.”
Alice: “You’re out of your mind! I dare you to show me.”
Page 8
Panel 1 of 2.
Alice and Dana’s conversation continues.
Above Dana, a diagram from Descartes showing the pineal
gland, another image of sunlight and a bird. Dana says:
“To overcome church prohibitions against cadaver
dissection and legitimize scientific study of the human
body, French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650)
separated the mind and the body, locating the soul in the
pineal gland.”
Above Alice, an image of a lightbulb and a bird, contrasting
with the sunlight/bird image above Dana.
Alice says: “Pineal. A pine cone-shaped, light-sensitive
gland that lets birds synchronize their egg-laying with
daylength.”
Alice says: “Just where would any of us be without
Descartes? Dead! How on earth would a surgeon have
found your ruptured appendix?”
Panel 2 of 2.
Alice conversing with Ludwig Bemelmans’ children’s book
character, Madeline.
Madeline says: “I would have died, too.”
Alice says: “You are just a character from a book,
Madeline. You don’t really have an appendix and you
can’t die!”
Madeline replies: “True. I just turned 75 while Ludwig
Bemelmans, my creator, died in 1962. Our first book has
taught generations the core values of our medical system.”
Page 9
Panel 1 of 4.
Alice sneering at Dana.
Alice says: “Ok, miss smartypants, Dr. Dana, what truths
did the generations glean from this charming book?”
Panel 2 of 4.
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Dana hanging upside-down from a tree branch.
Dana says: “That there are right and wrong ways to
behave around sickness, that the ideal sick role is
temporary, that when sick you will be cared for but you
can’t want to be sick, that experts decide if and with what
you are sick, that the body is like a care that experts can
mechanically fix.”
Panel 3 of 4.
Alice yells: “Get down from there right now!!!”
Panel 4 of 4.
Alice and Dana have calmed down.
Alice says: “All right. That’s better and that’s all true. The
body breaks and doctors fix it.”
Dana: “Socially true. Medical anthropologists locate
sickness in three interconnected bodies: the physical, the
social, and the political. That’s why medical schools hire
us.”
Alice: “Waste of money if you ask me.”
Page 10
Panel 1 of 1.
Narration: “Medical anthropology avoids reducing the
complexity of sickness and health into biological universals
by incorporating biocultural interaction.”
Image: Three nested figures: the political body as a
looming monster, arms outstretched, decorated with dollar
signs; inside, a human body (the physical body) with guts
visible, surrounded by other stick figures that say “yes” or
“no” representing the social body.
Text surrounds the monster: “The political body determines
who gets sick and well and how the social body gives
meaning to physical states. The social body even defines
the ideal physical body and then legitimizes practices such
as plastic surgery, body piercing, or ritual scarring to attain
that ideal. Medicine is a form of social control. Wealth
means health.”
Footnote: “For more see Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987)
MAQI: 6-41.”
Page 11
Panel 1 of 2.
Dana and Alice conversing. Levi-Strauss’s magic field
diagram embedded in Dana’s speech balloon.
Alice: “What a pile of mumbo jumbo.”
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Dana: “Exactly! Mumbo jumbo lies at the heart of most
healing systems. Experts have access to a world of secret
knowledge that could consist of anything from spirits to
science, patients and communities believe in those who
can access the secrets.”
Panel 2 of 2.
A shaman with spirals, hands and other iconography in his
speech balloon overlapping with that of an MD who has an
EEG read-out in his speech balloon.
Page 12
Panel 1 of 4.
Alice and Dana conversing.
Alice: “Enough already! The content is bad enough but to
mix comics with medicine is positively insulting. I want no
part of it.”
Dana: “But you were the whole reason I got into this.”
Panel 2 of 4.
Alice: “Me? How’s that?”
Panel 3 of 4.
Dana: “You have Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Panel 4 of 4.
Alice: “I forgot. What a lousy thing to have.”
Page 13
Panel 1 of 2.
Conversation continues.
Alice: “Why comics?”
Dana: “Because when you lived with us you ate up every
graphic narrative that came into the house. The pictures
helped the story stick.”
Alice: “I did?”
Dana: “Also, we got along better during this sickness than
we ever had. I admire and respect how you have handled
it.”
Alice: “You did?”
Dana: “I wanted to tell that story. I wanted to help rewrite
the dominant biomedical narrative.”
Alice: “Why comics?”
Dana: “Because the rule-breaking tradition of comics
makes it the perfect medium for shifting the biomedical
conceptualization of Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Narration: “Biomedicine gives us a zombie story.”
Panel 2 of 2.
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Alice falling down a zombie spiral.
Page 14
Panel 1 of 4.
Alice with Zombie eyes and posture holds a distorted Alice
in Wonderland
Narration: “Without minds, who are we?”
Panel 2 of 4.
Alice up in a tower, yells “Save me, doctor!”
A white-coated doctor runs past, says “Quick! To the lab!”.
Narration: “And a cure, elusive.”
Panel 3 of 4.
Image: A spiral with squares marking biological birth and
death.
Narration: “But if we turn the zombie spirals into the
lifecycle and add squares for biological birth and death –
emergence from the womb or that last beat of the heart or
that final breath – then these lines can show social birth
and social death, when society confers personhood or
takes it away.”
Panel 4 of 4.
Narration: “Stigma, silence, and social death surround
states a society might fear or reject.”
Alice with one zombie eye and the other eye open, says
“Why comics?”
Page 15
Panel 1 of 1.
Image: Alice travels around the sun.
Narration: “Because comics undo social death. We see
you. You are real. You make us smile. Comics let us get
inside different ways of being, to understand experiences
that we fear right down to the core of our medical system.
Graphic medicine tackles everything from cancer to
epilepsy to HIV to the entire spectrum of conditions of the
“mind”. It takes the stigmatized and makes it safe. Graphic
medicine gives us ways to see the world through the eyes
of others, those who are hurting, to feel their stories and
remember our own, and to heal. Healing is not the same as
curing disease. It does not involve surgery or taking a pill.
This social process depends on sharing stories and letting
our collective memories meet. By meeting through story,
we make peace and move on even if we are sick or hurt or
dying.”
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Page 16
Panel 1 of 3.
Alice and Dana embrace.
Alice says: “Thank you.”
Dana says: “And thank you. … … So, what do you think:
exogamous marriage or paraphyletic groups?”
Alice: “Both. graphic medicine and medical anthropology
arose from the same primordial swamp.”
Panel 2 of 3.
Swamp with steam rising from it. Swamp contains words
bubbling to the surface: “By any means”, “Pain”,
“Anger”, “Discontent”, “Frustration”, “Injustice”,
“Feminism”, “This is broken.”
Panel 3 of 3. Alice and Dana hold hands and smile.
Alice says: “And the marriage is exogamous. Comics and
medicine, like cultural and biological anthropology, have
their own languages and traditions. This makes both
graphic medicine and medical anthropology exogamous
before they even hooked up.”
Dana: “In anthropology the answer is always both, or
malaria.”
Alice: “That makes for hybrid vigour, you know.
Dana: “Sure does.”
AMA citation
Walrath D. Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology. Somatosphere.
2016. Available at: http://somatosphere.net/2016/06/graphic-medicine-and
-medical-anthropology.html. Accessed June 13, 2016.
APA citation
Walrath, Dana. (2016). Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology.
Retrieved June 13, 2016, from Somatosphere Web site: http://somatosphe
re.net/2016/06/graphic-medicine-and-medical-anthropology.html
Chicago citation
Walrath, Dana. 2016. Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology.
Somatosphere. http://somatosphere.net/2016/06/graphic-medicine-and-m
edical-anthropology.html (accessed June 13, 2016).
Harvard citation
Walrath, D 2016, Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology,
Somatosphere. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from <http://somatosphere.net/2
016/06/graphic-medicine-and-medical-anthropology.html>
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MLA citation
Walrath, Dana. "Graphic Medicine and Medical Anthropology." 13 Jun.
2016. Somatosphere. Accessed 13 Jun. 2016.<http://somatosphere.net/20
16/06/graphic-medicine-and-medical-anthropology.html>
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