Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings July 2017 - 378

Humor in medicine: Can laughter help in healing?
Allen B. Weisse, MD

orman Cousins. If you recognize the name you
probably will connect it with the one-man movement championing laughter as a form of medical
therapy back in the 1960s. The controversy over
this has simmered on and oﬀ ever since and perhaps is due for
a revisit. But, before exploring the element of humor in the
literature of medicine and its potential as a therapeutic agent,
an overdue confession is in order.
In the fall of 1963, having completed 2 years of training in
cardiovascular research at the University of Utah, I took my ﬁrst
step up the academic medical ladder with an appointment as
instructor of medicine at what was then Seton Hall College of
Medicine in Jersey City, New Jersey, and is now Rutgers New
Jersey Medical School in Newark. On one fateful afternoon, I
entered the oﬃce of my new chief to deliver some paperwork
that needed his approval. The oﬃce was completely deserted.
As I dropped the papers on the secretary's desk, I saw a ﬁle
resting there with my name on it. The urge was irresistible.
Without even pausing to consider the propriety of my act, I
opened the ﬁle and found on top of the contents the letter of
recommendation that my former chief in Salt Lake City had
sent to my current one.
"Dr. Weisse is not the best fellow we have ever had," it read,
"but he is not the worst." Then, as if to compensate for this less
than resounding endorsement, he added, "Dr. Weisse does have
a good sense of humor."
The words jolted my memory back to an even earlier period
when I was labeled the good humor man. When I was in the
senior graduating class at George Washington High School in
New York City in 1946, my schoolmates, in selecting "Senior
Celebrities," saw ﬁt to name me as Best Natured. When I reported this honor to my family, they could not stop laughing.
At home I was known as the one with the short fuse and towering tirades. They thought it was hilarious that I had received
such an award. "Allen the Terrible," I am sure they would have
picked as a better ﬁt.
I wonder now if, all the years since, I have been trying to
live up to this reputation, to soften my image and become a
nicer person for my colleagues, patients, and students. Beyond
my personal attributes, I began to think about how "good nature" and its ﬁrst cousin "good humor" may have been part of
medical literature over the ages and also whether or not this
378

may have had any bearing on the course or outcome of illness
in the patients we have attempted to serve.
To evaluate in some way how much humor had permeated
the literature of medicine in the past, I began by examining the
creative writing of those physicians who were well recognized
as having distinguished themselves in this way instead of or in
addition to their contributions to medical science. How much
of this writing was humorous? Then I tried to identify the works
of nonphysicians who had achieved renown by poking fun at
the profession in some way.
In the ﬁrst category, as early as the 16th century, we have the
example of Dr. François Rabelais producing his comic masterpiece Gargantua and Pantagruel. Since that time I am sure there
have been others of whom I am not aware. But what I did ﬁnd
impressive was the cluster of candidates for such recognition
from the mid 19th century and well through the 20th century.
We remember Anton Chekhov mainly through his plays.
Although it has been observed that there is a vein of humor
through this body of work skewering a certain segment of Russian society, when I think of Chekhov's plays I am more often
seized by thoughts of unrequited longing, self-delusion, depression, and death.
Arthur Conan Doyle was indubitably one of the most successful physician-authors with his widely popular Sherlock Holmes
stories. However, engrossing as they may be, funny they are not.
There is another Holmes, closer to home, who merits consideration. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician father and not
the jurist son, was one of Boston's Brahmins and a celebrated
practitioner as well as a man of letters. He was known for his
witty pronouncements, one of which is often quoted today.
In expressing his dismay about the many nostrums, unproven
and sometimes dangerous, prescribed by the doctors of his day,
Holmes quipped, "I ﬁrmly believe that if the whole materia
medica as now used could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it
would be all the better for mankind-and all the worse for the
ﬁshes." But a venture into one of his major works, The Autocrat
From the Department of Medicine, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School,
Springfield, New Jersey.
Corresponding author: Allen B. Weisse, MD, Professor of Medicine (retired),
Department of Medicine, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, 164 Hillside
Avenue, Springfield, NJ 07081 (e-mail: allenweisse@gmail.com).
Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent) 2017;30(3):378-381

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