Mitch4 sends this in, along with today’s important medical information: “I noted this because it was a misunderstanding I used to have. The point of the “turn your head” part of the hernia check is really just “so that you don’t cough on me!”. But I long thought it had something to do with some connection between the muscles and tendons in the neck and upper torso with the scrotum and waistline (potential hernia areas), so that the cough-test would work.
“And the cartoonist is here relying on that misunderstanding, or even worse, not only thinking that the turned head is an inherent part of the test, but here seeming to rely on the turned head *alone*, without the visceral grip.”
Comics I Don't Understand 
Duh! I’m 76yo and it never occurred to me why I turned my head to cough.
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The salmon trucks (lorries?) should be in the other lane (line?).
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The traffic is all on the left. Rules are different in Anderland.
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That’s why the trucks should be on the right, swimming upstream against the current.
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The hernia thing is beyond me.
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@BoiseEd, one way to check for an inguinal hernia is to palpate (feel) the lower belly while making the patient cough. Coughing increases pressure in the abdomen, and the practitioner can actually feel the piece of gut protrude out.
What I want to know is why the doctors are wearing starfish badges.
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Carl Fink (6): The badges probably connect to the “bandit.” I get how they check for a hernia, but I don’t get “the infamous hernia bandit.” Is he saying someone stole the guy’s hernia?
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The badges are police badges. The pair seem to be…cop doctors?!
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Ed, I suppose he’s just an ordinary bandit of portable valuables — but he is somehow known to have a hernia, hence his nickname “hernia bandit”. (Or else when the latest victim/witness was robbed, they somehow noticed that the bandit suffered from hernia.) Now that is going to play a role in this “identity parade”.
Come to think of it, there seem to be two cops and no witness?
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I am female and yet I knew the reason for the cough is to check for a hernia, as well as the person giving the exam does not want to be coughed on by the patient.
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