Is the stool more eloquent than the pulse?

I've always found the stool more eloquent 

than the pulse 

A quote from the Madness of King George, from a physician carrying the royal bedpan. 
Though observation of excretions are important, they are rarely used in medical illustration. 

Saggittal sections, though are common as illusatrations of the human body

Anatomy is the traditional bedrock in illustrating medicine for doctors and nurses and yet it can be used inappropriately: sagittal sections of male and female partners during sexual intercourse, for instance, are an example of extreme violence if taken literally. The same applies to coronal section of the brain. Dissection plays a smaller part in medical training than it used to; perhaps because we seek images that convey the living quality of health and disease.

Scans have become popular in TV science programmes but do they really convey as much as we are led to believe or are they just a convenient way of drawing attention to one part of the body? They are often composites of several subjects and coloured after the event. The influence of dissection is clear here as well.

Pharmaceuticals illustrate the action of drugs in 3D at a molecular level but do they really convey the complex cyclical interaction of drug, chemical, hormonal, neurotransmitter and electrical activity that continually plays out like a symphony in living bodies?

Advertisers of trans-dermal products show parts of the body lighting up and changing colour. Perhaps these are closest to patient’s experience of their own bodies.There is overlap here with creative visualisation used in pain control and in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome.
I’m wondering if there’s a ‘vernacular imagery’, a visual language in patients’ own drawings of symptoms such as pain, fatigue, itch or memory loss, which are important for doctors to recognise but difficult to convey with conventional methods. Such imagery could be influenced by all the above methods but unique and possibly ‘explanatory’ in peer-to-peer learning or medical teaching.

Animated documentary is a genre which in some ways matches the way our minds work, with humour and constant transformation. So I am exploring ways to elicit imagery that conveys the experience of pain, fatigue or forgetfulness in chronic disease.