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| "Everyone look at me...I've got a chemical imbalance" - Image: audiobooksonline.com |
Just when you thought it was safe to start reading books of fiction...
Tom Sawyer had Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]... apparently.
An article published online at Slate by Anne Applebaum shows apparent proof from Mark Twain’s 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer', that Sawyer had ADHD.
Applebaum writes:
He [Tom Sawyer] clearly has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — ADHD — as well, judging by his inability to concentrate in school. "The harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his mind wandered," Twain writes at one point. Unable to focus ("Tom's heart ached to be free"), he starts playing with a tick. This behavior is part of a regular pattern: A few days earlier in church (where he had to sit "as far away from the open window and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible"), Tom had been unable to pay attention to the sermon and played with a pinch bug instead.
Whatever next?
The character Barry Guiler from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind had tinitus? [Play the five tones - [Doo-Dee-Doo-Daa-Daa]
Or maybe Luke Skywalker had small penis syndrome, hence the need for him to walk around clutching a large lightsaber?
Maybe Chief Brody [Jaws] reluctance to step in to the water was down to aquaphobia or maybe he had rabies?
Reminds me of the Mr. Men series of books and how Glaxo jumped at a great advertising opportunity.
Back in 2003, Roger Hargreaves son, Adam, wrote a book entitled 'Mr. Sneeze and His Allergies'. It told how Mr Sneeze starts to sneeze "in the middle of summer". His friend Little Miss Sunshine suggests he may have hayfever.
It continued by telling the reader [Children] that Miss Sunshine discovered that he was allergic to the feathers in his pillow. All good educational stuff one would assume but why tell children about allergies?
Step forward the genius that is GSK.
The story was followed by four pages of information on allergies from Allergy UK and two pages promoting the use Piriteze and Piriton.
Both Piriteze and Piriton are sold by GlaxoSmithKline and according to this source the book was paid for by GlaxoSmithKline.
Maybe, if the nutty professor brigade have their way, future copies of Goldilocks and the Three Bears will have advice in the back of the book on kleptomania, afterall, Goldilocks did steal the porridge now, didn't she?
Or maybe the Sleeping Beauty books will be published in the future with a warning of Narcolepsy or sleep apnoea written into the preface?
Thumbalina, obviously, will have a severe case of Dwarfism whilst The Three Little Pigs were more than likely abused by their mother - what mother would send her children out into the big bad world anyhow?
Tom Sawyer had ADHD?
**IMPERSONATION OF BIFF [Back to the Future]
"Hello, McFly, Sawyer wasn't real"
Enjoy Canadian rockers performing Tom Sawyer - 'Mean, mean pride'.
Fid
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'THE EVIDENCE, HOWEVER, IS CLEAR...THE SEROXAT SCANDAL' By Bob Fiddaman
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