Polite Dissent

From the spring of 1963 comes this PSA on anesthesia from the Dr. Kildare comic book. Certainly anesthesia is an unusual topic for a PSA page, but let’s at least give the writers credit for using medically related information to fill the pages.

It’s an interesting PSA because it shows how far medical science has advanced just in the field of anesthesia over the past forty years. It also, inadvertantly, shows how much society has changed as well…take a look at that second panel: cocaine as a local anesthetic. It’s not used much today, if at all (though during my medical school years, “TAC” — Tetracaine, Adrenaline, and Cocaine — was used as a topical anesthetic in the pediatric ER, and that wasn’t too many years ago. I’m not sure if it’s still in use now.). The general anesthetics mentioned — ether and chloroform — are long gone and have been replaced, several times over, by better medications. And that “Auto-Hypnosis” concept? Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now. Still an interesting idea though.

PSA Update

In my coverage of the classic Superman: For the Animals, I wrote:

Besides the story and five pages of DC house ads, Superman for the Animals also contains the alliterative Comics for Compassion Coloring Contest, where children 8-12 got to color a picture of Superman and tell DC Comics how they would help animals if they had super powers. The winner got the chance to appear in a DC comic along with their favorite pet. Sadly, I don’t know if this ever came to pass.

Thanks to an e-mail from the Director of Comics for Compassion, I (and now you) know the answer as well. 12 year-old Veronica Munoz won, and appeared in Young Justice #49 and #50 (she was one of the heroes tagging along with YJ on their invasion of Zandia). I’ve scanned in the title page of YJ #50 so everyone can see the winner “Snake Girl” (YJ #50 story by Peter David, art by Todd Nauck)