2580: Rest and Fluids

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Rest and Fluids

Title text: Remember not to take it easy. Put a hot washcloth on your forehead, remain standing, and breathe dry air while taking lots of histamines. You need to give your body a chance to get sick again.

Explanation

Black Hat congratulates Cueball on his recovery from some type of illness or injury. Common advice when someone is sick is to get plenty of rest and drink lots of water, to aid recovery and to ensure they don't ignore various common causes of fluid loss.

However, being Black Hat, he targets Cueball (who has been restored to full health) to tell him that he now should do the opposite of this. While a healthy person should get a reasonable amount of exercise, and should not spend excessive time in bed, Black Hat goes to an absurd extreme. He tells Cueball to stop drinking water entirely and engage in an excessive amount of activity — in this case, by running on a treadmill to the point of physical collapse. The caption explains this, saying that it is "important" to tell people who have recently recovered from sickness to stop resting and drinking fluids, suggesting that these behaviors are for the exclusive purpose of healing and that they are useless (or even counter-productive) for someone who is now healthy.

Part of the joke may be that the most basic common and basic advice to people who are sick is good, general advice in any case. While a person who's sick should be particularly attentive to these needs, and will generally require more rest than a person who's healthy, getting adequate rest and hydration are important for maintaining health, not just recovering from illness, and pursuing the opposite would be dangerous.

The title-text expands on this backward line of thinking by suggesting to do the opposite of common remedies for various usual remedies: a hot cloth, standing, breathing parched air, taking histamines (this is as opposed to reducing fever with a cool compress, resting in bed, inhaling hot water vapors and using antihistamines). These are increasingly bizarre. A hot cloth on the forehead would range from useless to dangerous (if too hot, it could cause burns or overheating). Remaining standing isn't harmful for most people, but would soon become exhausting. Breathing dry air isn't harmful for most people, but without adequate water would dehydrate you even faster. Histamines are compounds created in the body that regulate the immune system. They're generally not available as a supplement so it would be difficult to "take" histamines. If you could somehow raise your histamine levels artificially, it could interfere with any number of bodily functions.

This comic has some resemblance to 2279: Symptoms since it also makes a joke out of symptoms or the opposite of symptoms. Although not mentioned here, this comic is probably, like Symptoms, related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people were still sick with it at the time of publishing this comic.

Transcript

[Cueball and Black Hat are talking to each other. Black Hat has his arms outstretched.]

Black Hat: So glad you're feeling better!

Black Hat: Be sure to get dehydrated and run on a treadmill until you black out!

[Caption below the panel:]

Once people aren't sick anymore, it's important to remind them to stop resting and drinking fluids.

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Discussion

I added in an initial explanation; feel free to add anything you think is needed. KirbyDude25 (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I think the 'antihealing' advice is a two-edged sword. Just like the adage of "feed a fever, starve a cold" (however true that is), a hot-compress might at times be useful (hypothermia?), and similarly for the rest. Or most of them, anyway. A healthy person would need an excess of antimedicine to actually become ill again. Not sure where that limit lies with histamines, that might be the 'worst' to suffer, going by relative ease of application. 172.70.86.68 02:18, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

this is something like the "extremely wet cough" etc etc comic i think 172.70.135.154 02:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

Agree, I added 2279: Symptoms to the explanation. --Kynde (talk) 17:03, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I think this comic clearly is a reference to Corona pandemic... But of course it is not mentioned, but the pandemic is still raging and people get sick of it all over the world at this time. Should it be added to the list of corona comics? --Kynde (talk) 17:03, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

No, I disagree. This comic is about general sickness so it should not be added to the covid category. 172.70.214.43 05:23, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

+1 Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:18, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I've been thinking of adding a "general sickness" category, but I don't know what the Category should be named. Sickness? Illness? Natg19 (talk) 20:23, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I think anything that *could* be covid related and is published during the "era of covid" should be put in the covid category 162.158.146.55 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Whereas I think the covid category might be relevant here, I also think that we might never get fully out of this era... So maybe not for that reason alone... --Kynde (talk) 10:59, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

This comic really doesn't ring true for me. I mean, when someone has recovered from something, we often say "In future, make sure you don't overdo it, or you'll get sick again". Saying the opposite is... odd, I guess. Thisfox (talk) 22:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

That's the point. Black Hat does the opposite of what "typical" people to troll them or make their lives miserable. 172.70.211.18 18:33, 16 February 2022 (UTC)