In the brilliant book MASH, by Richard Hooker (real name H. Richard Hornberger), Captain Walter “The Painless Pole” Waldowski, a brilliant, handsome, and priapic surgical dentist, suffers from what today would be diagnosed as bipolarism, periodically becoming deeply depressed. His doctor friends offer him the ultimate suicide, complete with a huge party and a painless final shot. In fact, it’s a con, for they simply knock him out to help him sleep off his depression, and they even give the well-endowed dentist a blue ribbon award while he sleeps. All ends well.
