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Friday, October 27, 2006 

Strange Medical Cases & Stuff

Where the hell to start??? There are so many strange medical cases that I think are just absolutely fascinating. I will probably write a few post about some of them. My little brother started working at Barnes & Noble and can buy me books at 50% off... I have a long list of books for him to buy me at the moment, I don't know if I can get all of them read. The book that I am currently reading is called "Stiff"... It is about cadavers... and yes I will most defanitley write about it when I am done. Did you know they used dead bodies in biological warfare during the dark ages? They used to throw the bodies of soldiers that died of the plague over castle walls to infect the people inside. How weird would it be to have been a person inside a castle during a months long battle, and to see dead bodies being catapulted into the castle square! Anyway, that is not what I am writing about today.

I suppose I will start with a couple strange medical facts. like the fact that "In Nepal, Cow Dung is used for medicinal purposes. The Nepalese, believing that Dung has antiseptic properties, often pack a woman's vagina with it after she has given birth. This practice is thought to be responsible for the high incidence of tetanus among new mothers in Nepal". Sounds appealing right? Well in certain time periods and places, I will use ancient Egypt as an example, Camel shit was packed into the vagina for birth control purposes. And to think, I would probably throw a fit if I were to have to wear a condom. So I am guessing that oral sex is not a popular choice among men in places where animal shit is shoved up in there. Just a thought. Also, in ancient China, doctors were forbidden in the name of honor to see their female patients naked. To circumvent this prohibition, doctors on house calls brought with them a small ivory carving of a woman's naked body. This carving was passed into the curtained bedchamber of the ailing woman along with instructions on how to mark the troubled organs. The statue was then handed out through the curtains and the doctor made his Diagnosis on the basis of the markings. Not as interesting as the whole shit into the vagina concept, but its not easy to top that one.

This may or may not top the shitty vagina trivia, but I guarantee you that you will think about this the next time you are thinking about having sex with someone. So we had some free time in class a few weeks ago, and so our teacher brought up a conversation about HIV. Here is a quote from emedicine.com "According to a report by researchers Norman Hearst and Stephen Hulley in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the odds of a heterosexual becoming infected with AIDS after having penile-vaginal intercourse with someone in a non-high-risk group (IV users, gay men) without a condom are one in 5 million". No, this is not the mind blowing part yet, but still keep in mind that your odds of being murdered are 1 in 11,000 and the odds of being struck by lightnining are 1 in 600,000. Now lets talk about hermaphrodites. here is a quote from the Intersex Society of North America.... "Here’s what we do know: If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life." Wow.... That means that you are more likely to have sex with someone that was born a mangirl or a ladyman, than you are to contract HIV. Even better, it is believed that 1 in every 45,000 births is a true hermaphrodite... meaning a person that has functional male and female genetalia.

Anyway, some medical diseases..... At some point in time, a person may feel that a part of himself or herself is missing. Well if you were to be diagnosed with Cotard's Syndrome, this might be literal to you. People suffering from Cotard's syndrome believe that they are literally missing pieces of their body, some even believe that they are dead. They smell the rotting of their own flesh and sometimes believe that they can feel the maggots crawling around on their dead flesh. How fun.


Everyone at some point in life has been so tired that he or she felt like they could just die. What if you really did die? There are about 28 known families in the world, in which members have a 50% chance of develpoing a disease called Fatal Familial Insomnia. One of the books I have now is titled "The Family that Never Sleeps". This is a disease that I learned of about two years ago, and since then I have read almost every article written about it. Though I have not started the book yet, I don't want to wait to write about it. Twenty-eight families..... Let us assume that there are also families in poor places such as Africa, that can not be diagnosed with it... That is still a fucking rare disease. It was discovered by an Italian doctor that married into a family that suffered from the condition. He was able to document it centuries back in her family. All the way to the first insane asylum created in Europe. It takes anywhere from 14 to 18 months from the onset of symptoms, for it to cause death. It takes so long, because the periods of "sleep" last only a matter of seconds in the final stage. This literally drives the inflicted person crazy. No known sleeping agents known to man, have an effect. Here is an excerpt from a NBC:Dateline transcript. "Tapes recorded his semi-awake state. His eyes rarely stay closed. Then after 6 months, he begins miming in his half-dreams - combing his hair, buttoning his shirt. Though he may look conscious, he isn't. He's lost in a passageway between sleep and the wakeful world. In time, he finds it difficult to walk. Insomnia caused his body to shut down and he died, exhausted, at 52." I shoudn't complain about my lack of sleep due to school and work. By the way, five of the known twenty-eight families, live here in the United States.

Another rare case known as FOP (Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva), is when tissues in the body begin to turn into bone. Ouch. The areas that are most commonly effected are the neck, shoulders, and back. A patients connective tissue in his/her knees, hips, elbows can also ossify, causing the limbs to be permanently locked into place. No one knows what causes this, and cutting away at the formed bone only causes more bone to grow. Pictures are alw
ays fun.











Early symptons are malformed toes.... like this


Gross.

Something that has been making headlines in the news lately is a condition known as sexsomnia. It of course, is a person that unknowingly has sex in his or her sleep. How fucking cool would that be! Imagine being a sleep therapist, and having some sexsomnia patients staying the night at your clinic......

aahhhaa!!! wiseguy I love yoo!

SPLENDID post!! you are da coolest.

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