Polite Dissent

After the infamy of the 1950s Senate hearings on the comic book industry, EC abdandoned their traditional horror and true crime stories for a new public-friendly approach. One of EC’s new comics was M.D., a comic about doctors, told in the delicate art and typographic fonts common to classic EC comics.

M.D. #4 was published in October/November 1955 and contains four short comic stories, a one page text piece, and a letters page. The cover by Johnny Craig shows physicians resuscitating a drowning victim. Note the old-style approach to artificial respiration, with the patient laying face down and the doctor’s weight on the back of the patient’s chest and abdomen. This was the standard approach until mouth-to-mouth respiration was developed.

The first story, “So That Others May Walk”, concerns polio. Thanks to immunizations, polio is thing of the past in the developed parts of the world and we’ve forgotten how devastating this disease truly is. I think a copy of this story should be provided to everyone who questions the need for vaccinations.

Danny Hoyt has contracted polio and has been placed in an iron lung. His mother Francis is concerned that the doctor is treating her son as a number, and not a real person. Dr. Wolack tells her the story of Jimmy, a young boy who contracted polio just like Danny. Jimmy had to learn to breathe on his own again and then had to learn to walk. It was slow going, but Jimmy persevered. Even though he walks with a limp, he still made it a point to play sports. He studied hard and made it through high school as the valedictorian. He went on the college and then medical school. That’s right: in that hopeful twist that occurs in many medical stories, the boy Jimmy grew up to become Dr. Wolack, the physician treating Danny. Reassured, Danny’s mother thanks him and goes to spend time with her son.

Next is a one page text piece about Dr. William Harvey, the doctor who discovered the circulation of the blood. He was ostracized and considered a heretic for his views. He was even placed on trial. Charles the First remembered Dr. Harvey though, and when a French countess was bitten by a poisonous snake, he sent for him to treat her. Click here for the full fascinating tale.

The second story, “New Outlook”, tells the story of Marian, a college student who suffers extensive facial injuries in a car accident. She is horrified by her appearance, and locks herself away from her family and boyfriend. The plastic surgeons calmly work with her, and after more than a year and multiple surgeries, she regains her beautiful countenance and says yes when her boyfriend offers her his fraternity pin.

The third story, “Point of View”, is fairly disturbing. Donald Archer wakens in the hospital after a terrible car accident (yes, another one). He demands to know what happened to his daughter and wife. The doctor tells him that his daughter is fine, but that his wife has died from her injuries. The doctor then asks for permission to transplant his wife’s corneas into a blind patient. Donald refuses and orders the doctor out of his room for even suggesting such a thing. The doctor doesn’t give up and keeps talking to Donald about the need for the corneas but Donald remains adamant and refuses to give his permission. Finally, the doctor brings in an ophthalmologist who manages to talk Donald into donating his wife’s corneas. At the end of the story, when Donald finally gets the chance to visit his daughter, he discovers that she was the blind patient. The doctors needed his wife’s corneas to repair the eye damage his daughter suffered in the accident — though you think it would have gone smoother if they told him who the blind patient was from the beginning.

“Worried Sick”, the final story, is an unusually downbeat story — in an O. Henry kind of way — for this comic. The story concerns a man with a stress induced ulcer. He is an up and coming grocer, but that’s not enough for his wife. She keeps pushing him to expand his business, and he does — time and time again — until he is the top grocer in the city. He doesn’t see any money though, because his wife keeps spending it. He sees the doctor about some stomach pain he’s been having, and the doctor informs him that his has an ulcer and puts him on a special diet. The grocer explains things to his wife, and she promises to cut her spending, but she keeps throwing expensive parties and he ends up requiring surgery for a perforated ulcer. This time, the doctor speaks to the wife himself and explains how the stress from her spending is causing her husband’s ulcer. She promises to restrain her spending. All seems well until her husband returns home from the hospital and finds his wife and thrown him a get well party – and told the caterer to bring the best food money can buy. The look on her poor husband’s face is priceless.

Like previous issues, M.D. #4 contains interesting glimpses of state of the art medicine from a half-century ago. It also contains some not-so-subtle sexism, but I’m afraid that’s standard issue for most of these classic medical comics.