Hey there, boys and girls. It's that time again -- time for another instalment of: Hippocrates Sez ... regarding Hysteria in Virgins!

According to the Greek doctor, when a virgin does not take up a husband at the suitable moment of marriage, her female "egress" remains unopened, and thus gradually impedes her monthly flow of blood. The blood collects in the womb, unable to secrete from the body, and without escape, rushes up to the heart. It becomes clogged and sluggish, and then numb, causing insanity. Kind of like when you sit too long and your leg falls asleep, you know? he says -- you go crazy.

As her body chokes with blood, she comes to suffer "erratic fevers", violent inflammations, visions, bad dreams, fears of decay and darkness. Distraught and anguished, she becomes prone to murder and the utterance of "dreadful things."

He cautions young ladies not to jump down a well, as virgins in these circumstances are known to do (and it doesn't even work). The solution to these terrible calamities, he advises, lies in the removal of the blockage and freeing the flow of fluids. To do this, the dewy, velvety, unfortunate virgin must "cohabit with a man as soon as possible ... If they don't do this, either they will succumb at the onset of puberty or a little later, unless they catch another disease."

It's what Hippocrates Sez: If madness strikes, get in ye a cock.