Dear Web MD, B.C., I am a 22 year old male who attends Columbia University. Lately, I have had a terrible cough, sore throat, hoarse voice, weakness in my joints, and a bad runny nose. I have been taking Nyquil cough syrup and taking massive doses of vitamin C but neither seem to be helping much. I have an important class presentation coming up this week and need to feel my best. Please help!

Sincerely,

Congested at Columbia.

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My dear Boy! This sounds like a classic case of Chronic Kos cough. It was first diagnosed by that fraud Hippocrates. According to him, your humors are out of balance and you have an excess of Black Bile, remedied by an abundance of Cold & Dry foods. How Idiotic! That charlatan made his diagnoses 300 years ago- things have obviously changed. Get with the times, I say. Strict adherence to my Corpuscular theory, according to which all illness and disease results from an inharmonious movement of corpuscles within the body, will set you right in no time. I would classify your disease as Acute, a type caused by a constriction of pores, or an obstruction of your pores by an excess of atoms. Therefore, bathe regularly in the hottest water available. Follow this bathing regimen with a diet consisting only of extremely porous foods like breads (leavened), cereals, and simple vegetables. The theory behind this diet is obvious. As you suffer from a constriction of pores, a very porous diet will obviously remedy this affliction. Any modern physician knows that ones diet is analagous with ones physical well-being. I also prescribe a liberal dose of wine - 2 liters per diem. Accompany this with rigourous calisthenics and you should be feeling in top form in no time. Do not hesitate to call upon me if you have further questions.

Sincerely,

Asclepiades of Bithynia

Greetings!

We at Web MD, B.C. promise to provide you with the most up-to-date ancient medical wisdom. Whether you suffer from an abundance of pneuma, an aggravated spleen, or even love-sickness, we can offer expert advice to re-balance your humors and realign your animal spirits. If you are looking for a poisonous and ultimately futile chemical cure, please visit our similarly named competitor site. However, if you want to be cured using judicious prescriptions of wine, bathing, friction, and simple vegetables, this is the site for you. While Erasistratus and I may not agree on many topics, (in fact we often violently debate whether the veins originate in the heart or the liver, and many such matters) we both feel that our style of Medicine is infinitely preferable to the type that has been practiced in modern centuries. We invite the reader to write in with any medical questions, and we will answer them with our wealth of knowledge. Forget WebMD, this is WebMD, B.C.