You may wonder: who is Dr. Miles, and why can’t he afford an apostrophe? All will be clear in a moment. For the time being, enjoy these timeless jokes. Illegible signatures on a hotel register, home-slicing of linoleum, the use of small cloth squares to clean an ink pen – proof that the best humor is based in human experience, and hence absolutely timeless. Cicero would have laughed at these remarks.

The real point of the book, however, was not to collect the sharpest wit of the day. Every other page had a big loud ad aimed at the three common sources of human agony: the gut, the head, and the nerves. Let's investigate.