I’ll be 45 soon, and like some kind of age-related time bomb, suddenly I have back trouble. My doctor advised a «radio» and so off I went to my local «cabinet». Like any media junkie, I spent the waiting time looking at the pile of old magazines and wondering what it told me about the radiographer’s profession. There were the usual out-of-date copies of Elle and Voici. There was also a strange book called Dans les secrets de la police (L’Iconoclaste). Was the radiographer a former policeman? Or perhaps the author was a patient? In any case, merely lifting the book would have hurt my back, so I left it where it was.
I was also intrigued by something called Le Crapouillot. I was surprised to learn that the satirical journal des tranchées was created in 1915. The father of the founder, Jean Galtier-Bossière, was a doctor, so maybe that was the link. As the last issue was published in 1996, this was a very old magazine indeed. I turned my attention to the more recent Diagnostic Imaging Europe, but it was a bit specialist for my taste.
Luckily, at that point, the doctor called my name. (Nothing to worry about – a slight misalignment of the vertebrae that an osteopath will be able to treat.) I couldn’t help wondering, though: if print ever vanishes, what will doctors put in their waiting rooms? Ipads with out-of-date applications of them?
