Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits Dwarves ailments, and their names were Dropsy, Croupsy, Consumption, and Pleurisy. Pleurisy, who was very naughty painful, ran straight away to Mr McGregor’s garden thoracic cavity, and squeezed under the gate ribcage and intercostal muscles. Mr. McGregor’s physician came up with a sieve thoracentesis needle, which she intended to pop combine with antibiotics to treat ….
OK, enough of that silliness. It occurred to me, as we move our anatomy lab dissection focus from the head and neck to the thorax, that the latter is the especial territory of debilitating ailments that feature prominently in Victorian literature and the confinement/suffering/deaths of characters therein. I’ve also come to the realization that specializing, anatomy instruction-wise, in the often tricksy dissection of (relatively) tiny head and neck structures was perhaps a mistake. The thorax dissections go much more quickly. There is, however, the disturbing and paradoxical matter of a malformation of the thoracic inlet causing something known as thoracic outlet syndrome. Go figure.
For the last head and neck practical exam, I had several requests from the students for particular groups of animals, including Arctic animals and deep sea fish, which I was happy to oblige:
In other news, I can has published Futures story! \o/
debilitating ailments that feature prominently in Victorian literature
Bollywood films and opera too (I just saw Bright Star so very timely too).
Nice pics!
Yay! I hope they let you illustrate your Futures story.
\o/
(Mine should be out RSN).
@ Sabbi: Was Bright Star any good? Keats lost his father to a fall from a horse, yet another death trope in Victorian literature.
@ Bob: They produced a rather nice illustration that fit quite well. And the story itself fits with the issue (this week’s) in which it appears.
@ Richard: Will this be your second or third Futures story? \o/
Was Bright Star any good?
The poetry’s beautiful and it was shot beautifully. I liked it ok- I probably would have loved it when I was 18.
I missed the last line of your post- congrats!
Third blush
Kristi – fantastic news about your next Nature feature! And your drawings are charming in chalk, also. What are the arrows about? They looked like they were depicting movement in the oarfish, but what about the anglerfish?
Also, I read “caudad tales” as some sort of wordplay on “in the caudal direction” and “tail end” which was probably not quite your intent. Does it have to do with the upcoming Future feature?
What you lot need is a dose of camomile tea, one large spoonful at bedtime. RPG’s tale is a shaggy alien story which only got accepted because he used a word the editor hadn’t heard of before (the word was ‘borborygmus’, and don’t ask me, look it up. ) KV’s story on the other hand is quite charming in a fin-du-monde kind of way.
@ Heather: The arrows indicate the direction in which the students rotate through the individual tags in the anatomy exam; they have a minute and 15 seconds at each station. Apparently they are so stressed that they lose their way easily, even with the station numbers. Tasked with drawing arrows on the chalkboards, I quickly decided to embellish them. The students like the animals, so I’ve kept doing it.
And yes, the title was intended as a play on “moving in the caudal direction”, from head and neck to thorax, and of course “tails”. ;-)
@ Henry: I was very happy that my Futures story made it into this week’s issue. Not quite sure how/whether to include it on my CV, though. My next literary goal is a decent Mallorn contribution.