One of my favourite works of art in London can be found on the ground floor of the British Museum, just underneath the mummies. Cradle to Grave is a long display case filled with all the prescribed drugs a typical man and woman might take during a lifetime, all carefully sewn into a 13 metre-long strip of fabric. The tablets tell two parallel life stories - in her case featuring contraceptives and HRT, and in his case asthma, hayfever and (eventually) high blood pressure. Along each side of the artwork are a series of photographs depicting scenes from family life, and a few relevant artefacts such as a stubbed-out ashtray, a glass of red wine and a set of false teeth. But it's the multi-coloured tapestry of tablets that really draws the attention, creating a strikingcentrepiece to the museum's Living and Dying gallery.
Clipboard-clutching parties of schoolkids were skipping past the display case this morning, on their way to see the dead Egyptians upstairs. But older visitors were much more likely to stop, and to point, and to reflect. An elderly lady in a wheelchair sat smiling as she spotted some pills her husband used to take, while several tourists were clearly taken aback by the sheer volume of tablets laid out before them. That's 14000 tablets each - the average number of pharmaceuticals swallowed by a 'normal' Briton between birth and death. Tellingly, in the case of the average male patient depicted here, half of these pills are taken in the last ten years of his life - between the ages of 66 and 76. I've got a long way to go yet.
Until yesterday morning, I'd never swallowed a tablet in my life (and yes, you can read whatever subtext you like into that). I've been extremely fortunate thus far to have avoided serious illness, or any long-term medical condition, so my total number of prescribed orally-ingested pharmaceuticals has been zero. Lucky me. There was one occasion, thirty years ago on a school coach trip home from Germany, when I was ordered to swallow a shiny plastic capsule full of antibiotics, but I failed utterly, merely splattering those sitting nearby with a gullet-full of fizzy cola instead. Soluble aspirin I have no problem with, but me and tablets, we've never got on.
So yesterday, I fear, marks a minor turning point in my life. I'm only on one tiny little white tablet a day, for some initially unspecified period. My new prescription's not keeping me alive or anything serious, but it is all a little unexpected. I know that many of you will be wondering what all the fuss is about, having been used to swallowing tablets for health or pleasure for decades. But I've just stepped across a line I was hoping not to have to cross, at least for several more years. I've now got to remember to gulp and swallow every morning, whereas before I could just brush and go. My own personal Cradle to Grave artwork starts here, this very week. Two tablets down, and hopefully slightly fewer than 13998 to go...
One of my favourite works of art in London can be found on the ground floor of the British Museum, just underneath the mummies. Cradle to Grave is a long display case filled with all the prescribed drugs a typical man and woman might take during a lifetime, all carefully sewn into a 13 metre-long strip of fabric. The tablets tell two parallel life stories - in her case featuring contraceptives and HRT, and in his case asthma, hayfever and (eventually) high blood pressure. Along each side of the artwork are a series of photographs depicting scenes from family life, and a few relevant artefacts such as a stubbed-out ashtray, a glass of red wine and a set of false teeth. But it's the multi-coloured tapestry of tablets that really draws the attention, creating a striking centrepiece to the museum's Living and Dying gallery.
Until yesterday morning, I'd never swallowed a tablet in my life (and yes, you can read whatever subtext you like into that). I've been extremely fortunate thus far to have avoided serious illness, or any long-term medical condition, so my total number of prescribed orally-ingested pharmaceuticals has been zero. Lucky me. There was one occasion, thirty years ago on a school coach trip home from Germany, when I was ordered to swallow a shiny plastic capsule full of antibiotics, but I failed utterly, merely splattering those sitting nearby with a gullet-full of fizzy cola instead. Soluble aspirin I have no problem with, but me and tablets, we've never got on.
