~ Disclaimer ~
I'm not a medical doctor, I just play one on PanHistoria.
Column for amusement purposes only. Do not try this at home. Void where prohibited.

Q. Dear Inkie,

How would an Egyptian help combat heart attacks? -- Estarfigam the Memphite

A. Inkie would take a bifocal, or maybe trifocal, approach to this serious and abiding question.

The heart is a rather tough and contrary organ located under and slightly to the left of the sternum of the suspect at hand, and Inkie notes that a good arrowhead can put that sucker into satisfactory spasms. However such a solution remains ultimately messy, and the red fluid that may appear is as bad as grape juice for stain removal. On the other pyramid, Inkie notes that cleanliness is next to obnoxiousness, so if the gentle enquirer seeks to combat heart attacks in hand-to-hand, or hand-to-heart, combat, he's your second. Unless he safely disappears, but that occurrence is beyond the scope of this article.

The heart, or so Inkie has come to understand, is also the vehicle of romance and love. Unfortunately, all the hearts that your kindly physician has come to observe look like just so much meat, pumped through with blood. Inkie wonders why the heart has become the seat of conscienceness for love; in ancient Egypt our mental acuity was housed in our stomachs or something. Or, maybe indeed it was our hearts.

Ah, but to protect our own hearts, from the slings and spittles of everyday fate! Inkie recommends contemplating one's own navel (if you don't like yours, Inkie is happy to have you contemplate HIS, complete with personal belly-button lint.) Don't let anything in life bother you, or if you must, don't let anyone else know whatsoever.

As the song goes, "What's love got to do with it?" Dr. Neferbath the Physician knows that the Beat goes On, heartache, heartbeat, heartlife. Eh, the kindly doctor wants to hug someone some day. Perhaps it will be some other day.

Dr. Inkompotep Neferbath is a physician living in the soft sandy underbelly of Ancient Egypt, performing root canals and eye extractions with abandon, and boiling books to extract their wisdom. 

Please leave him your medical questions to be answered with his personally pungent expertise in the next issue of The PanHistorian.