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The Strange truth of "Mystery Illnesses"


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I cannot resist a news headline that refers to a mystery illness and there is no shortage to keep me interested. “Mystery of 18 twitching teenagers in New York”; “Mysterious sleeping sickness spreads in Kazakhstani village”; “200 Colombian girls fall ill with a mysterious illness”; “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome”. One medical disorder seems to attract this description more than any other: psychosomatic illness. That the body is the mouthpiece of the mind is evident in our posture, in the smiles on our faces, in the tremor of our nervous hands. But, still, when the body speaks too explicitly, when the power of the mind leads to physical disability, it can be hard to understand why. This perplexity is most apparent when psychosomatic disorders affect groups, spreading from person to person like a social virus, in a phenomenon often referred to as mass hysteria.

The healthy child who wouldn’t wake up: the strange truth of ‘mystery illnesses’ | Books | The Guardian

Edited by ted hughes
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In the link: 'resignation syndrome'! What an amazing name, suggesting the perfectly healthy(physically speaking) sufferers have simply given up on life. Have they found 21st century life so appalling they have simply checked out?

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15 minutes ago, ouija ouija said:

In the link: 'resignation syndrome'! What an amazing name, suggesting the perfectly healthy(physically speaking) sufferers have simply given up on life. Have they found 21st century life so appalling they have simply checked out?

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/uop-pcd092018.php

If you place this notion in an older more superstitious time. A "curse" can kill. One hell of a nocebo effect. 

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31 minutes ago, ouija ouija said:

In the link: 'resignation syndrome'! What an amazing name, suggesting the perfectly healthy(physically speaking) sufferers have simply given up on life. Have they found 21st century life so appalling they have simply checked out?

It is weird, isn't it? The children on the Australian island appeared to be a bit more in control though, if I have read it right.

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It seems we are all predisposed to find patterns , if only to come to general conclusions faster and more successfully .Right or mistaken .

But these  unusual illness examples are few and who can say whether they represent more or fewer than usual ?

 As far as I am concerned the "Havana " mystery was reasonably concluded and when seeing incidents involving numbers of people I always  want to be able to eliminate  group hysteria explanations first of all-- as noted in your OP  . 

 

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33 minutes ago, Xeno-Fish said:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/uop-pcd092018.php

If you place this notion in an older more superstitious time. A "curse" can kill. One hell of a nocebo effect. 

The link is so interesting to me that I have printed it off! :w00t: Thanks for posting it.

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35 minutes ago, Xeno-Fish said:

This seems more likely to be death by poisoning, the victim having been pricked by a very fine 'killing bone' dipped in poison. But I imagine the mental state of the victim plays a large part in their succumbing.

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Just now, ouija ouija said:

This seems more likely to be death by poisoning, the victim having been pricked by a very fine 'killing bone' dipped in poison. But I imagine the mental state of the victim plays a large part in their succumbing.

Could be, but I think it also works a lot like the "evil eye". 

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Could be that 'Western' medicine has protocols for detection that just miss the chance to diagnose what's going on. Because it doesn't fit their norms and also assume they know it all. Well they really don't yet. Or some do but choose to ignore it as it is not easy to monetise or fear from ridicule.

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