Q. Where do you think this drawing originally appeared? (In case you are not seeing it, the caption above this drawing says “Alcoholism”.)

A. This is the work of a very influential medical illustrator named Frank Netter. His drawings dominated medical textbooks for more than 20 years and many physicians at some point in their training used a book containing a Netter image. While Netter’s drawings of patients and illness are on some level humorous and entertaining to us now, many of his illustrations contain serious social and cultural bias of all kinds and would no longer be considered appropriate in a clinical or educational setting. Viewing “cartoons” of patients and illness is off-putting to most people today. This image is included to demonstrate that, regardless of their context, even “educational” pictures can carry with them a wide range of meanings and associations, often moralistic and based on stereotype.