EVER since Plato asked the question "How can we drink with least injury to ourselves?" nearly every culture has devised its own answers.

In Brazil, a popular answer is Engov (pronounced en-GOV-ee), an over-the-counter medication recommended for headache and allergy relief. Manufactured by Newlab Industria Farmaceutica in Sao Paolo, Engov is sold in tablet form.

The company traces the product's popular use back to the 1960's when a character in a Brazilian soap opera used Engov to temper his hangover. Now, a company spokeswoman said, it is used more often for hangovers than for anything else.

Debora Szuch, 18, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, prepared for a World Cup soccer celebration by taking an Engov tablet. After the last round of drinks, she took another.

"It was marvelous," Ms. Szuch said. "I felt very well and I didn't have any headache."

Engov is not sold in the United States, but its ingredients -- aluminum hydroxide, caffeine, acetylsalicylic acid and pyrilamine maleate -- can be found individually in some common products: antacids, coffee, aspirin and antihistamines.

Does that mean one can whip up a batch of Engov at home?

"You could do that," said Dr. Walter Hunt, the chief of the neurosciences and behavioral research branch of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, "but I wouldn't recommend it."

Photo: Engov pills are used in Brazil for hangovers. (James Keyser for The New York Times)

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