1. A method of automatically diagnosing a medical condition by use of a predicted timeline of symptoms, the method comprising: generating a plurality of timelines which are each representative of a typical course of a disease in terms of how and when the symptoms of the disease typically arise, vary, and subside over time; automatically asking one or more questions of a patient so as to elicit a symptom indicative of a chief complaint; automatically receiving answers from the patient in response to the questions; automatically identifying a disease corresponding to the chief complaint; correlating the chief complaint to a timeline for the disease; automatically asking one or more questions to elicit the presence and time of a first significant symptom on the timeline for the disease; adding an incremental weight to a cumulative score for the disease if the first significant symptom is established; and establishing the diagnosis when the cumulative score exceeds a predetermined threshold.