Callous – Fake Diseases – by Carlo Jose San Juan

Transcript

Box 1: Sir, you believe you have Sheehan’s syndrome due to a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction during basketball practice in school?
Box 1: Yes!
Box 2: And you admit to having Münchausen syndrome?!
Box 2: Ack! I must be quarantined!
Box 3: Looking up disease names won’t help you escape final exams this week!
Box 3: Humph! So much for internet medicine!

Vocabulary

Sheehan, Jarisch-Herxheimer, and Münchausen = 3 names of diseases that are not very common. One of them can occur only to women when giving birth (sheehan’s syndrom)
People who have Münchausen syndrome pretend to be sick all the time to get attention and to be taken care of by other people.
syndrome (n.) /ˈsɪndrəʊm/a combination of physical problems that often go together in a particular illness
quarantine (n.) /ˈkwɒrəntiːn/ If an animal or person is put into quarantine, they are kept away from other animals or people because they have or might have a disease.
To look up (v.) to search information about a word or a topic

The student who came to see the doctor here wants to avoid taking his final exam. Because students can be excused from their exams if they are really sick, he came to see the doctor and pretended to be sick so that the doctor would write a paper to be excused from taking the exams. The student looked up names of diseases online before meeting the doctor so he would look more credible. Of course, the doctor noticed that he was lying and made fun of him by asking him if he would admit to have the Münchausen syndrome.
This comic strip is also making fun of the fact that people misuse the information about medicine that they find on online websites.