Mad Medicine

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Would You Like Scurvy With That?

Documented: Student lives on Kraft dinner, gets scurvy

"When Johnny moved away from home, all he knew how to cook (variants: could afford, made a bet) was hot dogs (variants: porridge, hot dogs, Kraft Dinner, beer+pizza, Screaming Yellow Zonkers + Pepsi, etc., etc.); after six months, he was diagnosed with scurvy". While occasional students have been diagnosed as having scurvy due to an inadequate diet, it is unlikely that all the variants of this are true. (Side note, but one that comes up in discussions of this story: Scurvy is not a particularly rare disease, even today in the first world; alcoholics, homeless, schizophrenics, etc. are particularly prone to the problem.) Reference: Postgrad Med J 1967 Aug;43(502):549-50. Vectored (as ramen noodles) in Copeland's Microserfs.