Marriage and Illness

"Unhappily married individuals have yet another reason to identify marital difficulties and seek to improve marital quality: Their very health may depend upon it,"

as this article claims. Well, duh! Normally, we associate a good marriage with lots and lots of sex. And even more sex. And sex is good for your health. The reason is obvious:

Having sex usually involves being naked.

Being naked is one of the best things you can do for your health. Clothing is generally made of dangerous foreign particles and chemicals that can get into your system and do damage. A good marriage involves mostly naked time, while in a bad marriage the couple will wear clothes on a regular basis. Like I often say, "A dangling penis is a happy penis." And likewise, vaginas need fresh air for their health. Of course, being naked all the time can be hard on your social life. Many people still have Puritan ideas about clothing and modesty, but we can see that attitude rapidly disappearing in the world.

Also, there are some precautions you should take before going to a nudist lifestyle. You should cover your furniture with animal skins, because plant and synthetic materials are not natural to your body. If you can get human skin, that would be best.

And if you have a male dog you should have him neutered so he doesn't take advantage of you when you bend over. That's one lesson I wish I'd learned sooner!

Exercise Propaganda

Dear Dr. Spurious:

I'm average height and weight: about 5'6 and 345 lbs. I typically avoid physical activity, since it makes me breathe harder and sweat profusely from every place possible. However, I'm hearing more and more from supposed "medical professionals" about the "benefits" of regular exercise. I know I don't need it, but I'm told that if I exercise a lot, it can prevent me from getting fat in the future.

Anyway, I'm just wondering: should I take this exercise thing seriously, or is it just another passing fad?

Cheers,

Fit in Florida



Well, Fit, I've often found that when people tell others to exercise, it is often because they are in a state of dependence upon exercise. Almost "addicted" to it, you could say. Just as with smoking or drinking, it could only take one experience with exercise to become addicted.

Further, exercising often requires you to go outside. As everyone knows, there are many dangers outside, such as tigers and crocodiles. If I were to guess, I'd say that in the United States, over a million people a year are killed by crocodiles alone! I would put the deaths due to obesity at about 100 people per year. I think you can do the math.

In addition to the lack of tigers and crocodiles, staying indoors and performing healthy, non-movement related activities such as watching television or playing video games has many health benefits. For example, the layers of fat (or as I like to call them, "Health Deposits"), can prevent you from starving if you cannot eat for a week or two due to a natural disaster, getting stuck in a chair, or other unforseen circumstances. Your Health Deposits will also make you more attractive to women, since they will know you have enough money to eat lots of food.

Getting eaten by tigers or being loved by hordes of women: the choice is yours.

Leeches

This article at least has some good points (which is more than I can say for most other articles on the site). I think it's great that the Federal Dork Administration (my own cute pet term for them) allows leeches in medical treatment. But all throughout history doctors have been using leeches all wrong! Most "doctors" put the leeches on the sick patient to "help heal wounds and restore circulation in blocked blood veins." That's ridiculous. What you should do is put the leeches on a healthy person (preferably an athlete) and then feed the blood-fattened leeches to the sick patient so they can gain the strength of the healthy one. Duh! The article also states:

Under the law, a medical device is any article designed to diagnose, cure, treat, prevent, or mitigate a disease or condition; or to affect the function or structure of the body that does not achieve its effect primarily through a chemical action and is not metabolized.

Don't even get me started on that!

How does he type?

Dear Dr. Spurious,

I'm a loyal reader of your column and take your advice to heart. Ever since you exposed the conspiracy to encourage handwashing, I've refused not only to wash my hands, but also the rest of my person. However, this has had an unintended side effect in that I've developed what can only be referred to as pus-filled blisters in my armpits and groin, some of which are beginning to turn black. Additionally, I've begun to lose extremities -- I am typing this with my nose, as I am down to three fingers and even those are hanging tenuously by a few tendrils of flesh.. Now, I know that the Black Plague is alive and well in many of our rodent species, but I did a preliminary search on WebMD and I don't meet all the symptoms. I would go to my primary care physician, but since I don't have health insurance -- and he can't possibly be as knowledgeable as you -- I see no alternative but to ask for your assistance. Please help! I'm running out of body parts!

-Three-Finger Ted




Dear Three-Finger Ted,

The name "black plague" has always sounded offensive to me. I mean, come on, we're doctors. We shouldn't be racists, but rather egomaniacs. Name the disease after yourself, like Alzheimer's, Kleinfelter's, Rickett's and Scurvy. Regardless, you don't have the "black plague." It sounds to me like you have one of two problems:

1. You have washed far too much in your life, thereby scrubbing away your body and weakening its natural structural integrity. In this case you have only one option: I know an excellent prosthetician, Dr. Hook. I would refer you to him.

2. Do you still have your toes? If so, then it may not be from over-scrubbing, but rather from excessive contact with electromagnetic fields, which can slowly pull away your skin piece by piece. Keep your decaying limbs away from the computer for a while, and try to type with your toes. Do you live under high power wires? If not, you can strengthen your immunity to electromagnetic waves by exposing yourself to them in high doses while putting saline drops in your eyes and eating salty snacks. The extra sodium chloride--salt, to the lay person--will protect you from the temporary harmful effects of the electromagnetism.

Hand Washing: "Science?"

Q: What's all this hubbub about washing hands? It seems lately that every fast food restaurant that hires me (briefly) has a sign in the bathroom that says "Employees must wash hands." That's a bunch of crap! What makes them think they can run my life like that?

Sincerely,

Filthy in Delaware


A: You're right, Filthy. The modern obsession with hand-washing stems from an ancient superstition that diseases are caused by "germs," tiny creatures not unlike elves or gnomes that somehow climb into your body and wreak havoc. They are commonly depicted in Greco-Roman mythology as very small and green, and are also said to have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yeah, right! The scientific evidence in favor of this view is questionable at best. I recommend not washing your hands because dirt forms what I like to call a "health shield" that keeps out illness vibes.