fear not the swine flu

Citind articolul asta despre boli rare si super-rare, mi s-a incretit pielea de cateva ori (ee gee progeria, osificarea progresiva) dar apoi mi s-a descretit din nou la astea de mai jos:

Laughing Death

Laughing Death, more commonly known as Kuru, was exclusive to the tribal Fore people of New Guinea. The disease, which was characterized by sudden bursts of maniacal laughter, hit the headlines in the 1950s, and drew in doctors from around the world.

U.S. and Australian physicians observed men and women with shaking limbs, which subsided with rest, but a month to three months later sufferers would begin to sway and stumble, lost the ability to stand, become cross-eyed, and lose the power of coherent speech before eventually dying.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke reported that tests on the deceased showed death had been caused by the emergence of holes in the brain, known as "swiss-cheesing."

Eventually the American physician Carleton Gajdusek worked out that the infection was being passed on through the village custom of eating family members after death. When cannibalism was eliminated, the epidemic came to an end. In 1976, Gajdusek was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.

Pica

The magpie, Latin name pica, will eat anything, and so will sufferers of pica syndrome. Almost always pregnant women or children, sufferers develop an appetite for non-nutritive substances, such as paint, clay, plaster or dirt, or alternatively items that are more commonly considered to be food ingredients, such as raw rice, flour or salt.

It can only be considered pica if the appetite persists for over a month and the sufferer is of an age where eating these objects is considered developmentally inappropriate. Medical researchers have tenuously linked pica with a mineral deficiency, but according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, experts have yet to nail down a real, firm cause or cure for this strange disorder.

Foreign accent syndrome

Sufferers of foreign accent syndrome inexplicably find themselves talking in an unrecognizable dialect. Only 60 cases have ever been recorded.

Doctors initially dismissed it as a psychiatric problem, but in 2002, scientists at Oxford University, England, observed that sufferers shared the same brain abnormalities, which led to changes in speech pitch, lengthening of vowel sounds and other irregularities.

According to the Journal of Neurolinguistics, sufferers don't necessarily have to have been exposed to the accent they adopt: their new voice is not, strictly speaking, a foreign accent, but the changes in speech often bear a striking resemblance to other world accents.

The first case concerned a Norwegian woman in 1941, who developed a strong German accent and was ostracized from her community.

Alice in Wonderland syndrome

According to the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine, sufferers of Alice in Wonderland syndrome perceive objects as being far smaller than they are. The condition, also known as micropsia or Lillliput sight, can also affect the sense of hearing, touch and perceptions of one's own body image.

The syndrome is associated with migraine headaches and named after Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in which Alice goes through many bizarre experiences similar to those which might be experienced by a micropsia sufferer. The fact that Carroll suffered from migraines is well documented, and some speculate that his suffering may have prompted many passages in the work.

PS: Apropo de Pica, un personaj din "Veac de singuratate" a lui Garcia-Marquez are boala asta.

PPS: Just pondering... if I perceive people as being less interesting than they are, is it still Alice in Wonderland condition?