pathology_doc

Okay, we all know the trope. The artist - novelist, poet, philosopher, what have you - is (a) incredibly gifted and either (b) incredibly poor or (c) in possession of great amounts of money which he proceeds to pour down upon his doomed liver, breathe into his lungs or squirt into his veins, depending on where exactly in the 19th century he is (he may be desperately poor and destroying his liver, but in that case he's probably drinking mineral turps, not absinthe - or perhaps he's drinking mineral turps after blowing his inheritance on absinthe; whatever).

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, the artist - already weakened by poverty and alcohol (or cocaine or hashish or whatever) is coughing his way to a Romantic Tuberculous Doom up in his garret, pouring out reams of works (usually detailing his slide into dissolution) which will only be used as toilet paper while he yet lives but which future generations will hail as marks of genius instead of the deranged, DT's-driven ramblings of a tuberculous alcoholic.

What better instrument to record your decline with than this?