Spontaneous human combustion
Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) describes reported cases of the burning of a living human body without an apparent external source of ignition. There have been about 200 cited cases worldwide over a period of around 300 years.
There are many hypotheses which attempt to explain the various cases of human spontaneous combustion:
- Paranormal explanations (e.g., a ghost or divine intervention)
- Natural explanations based on an unknown and otherwise unobserved phenomenon (e.g., production of abnormally concentrated gas or raised levels of blood alcohol cause spontaneous ignition)
- Natural explanations that involve an external source of ignition (e.g., the victim dropped a cigarette)
Characteristics:
The spontaneous combustion of people (i.e. death from a fire originating within the victim's body without a direct external cause) is a theorised explanation for a number of unexplained cases, some of which are well-documented and many of which are not. The more convincing cases share the following characteristics:
- The body is completely or almost completely incinerated, while nearby furniture that should normally have been damaged under such temperatures remains intact. Damage is limited to the victim's clothing, to the area of the floor or furniture on which he or she died, and to the ceiling above the corpse.
- The torso is the focus of the fire, and if remains are found these are of the extremities, such as the feet.
- There are no traces of fire accelerant, and the fire does not have an evident external cause.
- The victim is typically alone at the time of death, and is thought to have been alive when the fire started, despite showing little sign of having struggled.
Morgellons Disease
Morgellons (also called Morgellons disease or Morgellons syndrome) is a name that was given in 2002 by stay-at-home-mom Mary Leitao to a proposed condition characterized by a range of cutaneous (skin) symptoms including crawling, biting, and stinging sensations (formication); finding fibers on or under the skin; and persistent skin lesions (e.g., rashes or sores). Doctors, including dermatologists and psychiatrists, regard Morgellons as delusional infestation (also called delusional parasitosis), the belief that there is a pathogenic infestation that remains despite contrary medical evidence.Möbius syndrome
Möbius syndrome (also spelled Moebius) is an extremely rare congenital neurological disorder which is characterized by facial paralysis and the inability to move the eyes from side to side. Most people with Möbius syndrome are born with complete facial paralysis and cannot close their eyes or form facial expressions. Limb and chest wall abnormalities sometimes occur with the syndrome. Most people with Möbius syndrome have normal intelligence, although their lack of facial expression is sometimes incorrectly taken to be due to dullness or unfriendliness. It is named for Paul Julius Möbius, a neurologist who first described the syndrome in 1888.
Encephalitis lethargica
Encephalitis lethargica or von Economo disease is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleepy sickness" (though different from thesleeping sickness transmitted by the tsetse fly), it was first described by the neurologist Constantin von Economo in 1917. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless. Between 1915 and 1926, an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica spread around the world; no recurrence of the epidemic has since been reported, though isolated cases continue to occur.
Dancing mania
Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania, St John's Dance and, historically, St. Vitus' Dance) was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, who danced uncontrollably and bizarrely. They would also scream, shout, and sing, and claim to have visions or hallucinations.
The mania affected men, women, and children, who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion. One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, Germany, in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe; one particularly notable outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518.
Affecting thousands of people across several centuries, dancing mania was not a one-off event, and was well documented in contemporary reports. It was nevertheless poorly understood, and remedies were based on guesswork. Generally, musicians accompanied dancers, to help ward off the mania, but this tactic sometimes backfired by encouraging more to join in. There is no consensus among modern-day scholars as to the cause of dancing mania.
The several theories proposed range from religious cults being behind the processions to people dancing to relieve themselves of stress and put the poverty of the period out of their minds. It is, however, understood as a mass psychogenic illness in which the occurrence of similar physical symptoms, with no known physical cause, affect a large group of people as a form of social influence.
Nodding disease
Nodding disease or nodding syndrome is a recent, little-known disease which emerged in Sudan in the 1960s. It is a fatal, mentally and physically disabling disease that only affects children, typically between the ages of 5 and 15. It is currently restricted to small regions in South Sudan, Tanzania, and northern Uganda. Prior to the South Sudan outbreaks and subsequent limited spread, the disease was first described in 1962 existing in secluded mountainous regions of Tanzania, although the connection between that disease and nodding syndrome was only made recently.
The symptoms of nodding disease are very peculiar. When children are affected by it, their growth is stunted completely and permanently. The growth of the brain is also stunted, leading to mental retardation of the affected individual. The disease is named nodding syndrome due to the characteristic, pathological nodding seizure. The seizure often begins when the children begin to eat, or sometimes when they feel cold. These seizures are brief and halt after the children stop eating or when they feel warm again. These seizures can manifest themselves with a wide degree of severity. Neurotoxicologist Peter Spencer, who has investigated the disease, has stated that upon presentation with food, "one or two [children] will start nodding very rapidly in a continuous, pendulous nod. The child next door will suddenly go into a tonic–clonic seizure, others will freeze." Severe seizures can cause the child to collapse, leading to further injury. Sub-clinical seizures have been identified in electroencephalograms, and MRI scans have shown brain atrophy and damage to the hippocampus and glia cells.
A curious feature is that no seizures occur when victims are given an unfamiliar food; for example, a candy bar.
Pica (disorder)
Pica is characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive (such as clay or chalk). For these actions to be considered pica, they must persist for more than one month at an age where eating such objects is considered developmentally inappropriate. There are different variations of pica, as it can be from a cultural tradition, acquired taste or a neurological mechanism such as an iron deficiency, or chemical imbalance. It can lead to intoxication in children which can result in an impairment in both physical and mental development. In addition, it can also lead to surgical emergencies due to an intestinal obstruction as well as more subtle symptoms such as nutritional deficiencies and parasitosis. Pica has been linked to mental disability and they often have psychotic comorbidity. Stressors such as maternal deprivation, family issues, parental neglect, pregnancy, poverty, and a disorganized family structure are strongly linked to pica.
Subtypes are characterized by the substance eaten, for example:
- Amylophagia (consumption of starch)
- Coprophagy (consumption of feces - Animal Feces)
- Geomelophagia (consumption of raw potatoes)
- Geophagy (consumption of soil, clay, or chalk)
- Hyalophagia (consumption of glass)
- Consumption of dust or sand has been reported among iron-deficient patients.
- Mucophagia (consumption of mucus)
- Odowa (soft stones eaten by pregnant women in Kenya)[5]
- Consumption of paint.
- Pagophagia (pathological consumption of ice)
- Self-cannibalism (rare condition where body parts may be consumed; see also Lesch-Nyhan syndrome)
- Trichophagia (consumption of hair or wool)
- Urophagia (consumption of urine)
- Xylophagia (consumption of wood or paper)
Sweating sickness
Sweating sickness, also known as "English sweating sickness" or "English sweate", was a mysterious and highly virulent disease that struck England, and later continental Europe, in a series of epidemics beginning in 1485. The last outbreak occurred in 1551, after which the disease apparently vanished. The onset of symptoms was dramatic and sudden, with death often occurring within hours. Its cause remains unknown.
The symptoms and signs as described by Caius and others were as follows: The disease began very suddenly with a sense of apprehension, followed by cold shivers (sometimes very violent), giddiness, headache and severe pains in the neck, shoulders and limbs, with great exhaustion. After the cold stage, which might last from half an hour to three hours, the hot and sweating stage followed. The characteristic sweat broke out suddenly without any obvious cause. Accompanying the sweat, or after that was poured out, was a sense of heat, headache, delirium, rapid pulse, and intense thirst. Palpitation and pain in the heart were frequent symptoms. No skin eruptions were noted by observers including Caius. In the final stages, there was either general exhaustion and collapse, or an irresistible urge to sleep, which Caius thought to be fatal if the patient was permitted to give way to it. One attack did not offer immunity, and some people suffered several bouts before succumbing.
The malady was never seen again in England after 1578. A similar illness, known as the Picardy sweat, occurred in France between 1718 and 1861, but was less likely to be fatal. It was accompanied by a rash, which was not a feature of the earlier outbreaks.
Exploding head syndrome
Exploding head syndrome is a phenomenon or condition in which the sufferer sometimes experiences a sudden loud noise coming from within their own head. The noise is brief and is usually likened to an explosion, roar, gunshot, loud voices or screams, a ringing noise, or the sound of electrical arcing (buzzing).
This noise usually happens at the onset of sleep or within an hour or two of falling asleep, but is not necessarily the result of a dream. Although the sound is perceived as extremely loud, it is usually not accompanied by pain. Attacks appear to change in number over time, with several attacks happening in a space of days or weeks, followed by months of remission. Sufferers often feel a sense of fear and anxiety after an attack, accompanied by elevated heart rate. Attacks may also be accompanied by perceived flashes of light (when perceived on their own, known as a "visual sleep start") or difficulty in breathing. The condition is also known as "auditory sleep starts". The associated symptoms are varied, but the benign nature of the condition is emphasized and neither extensive investigation nor treatment are indicated. Sufferers may experience an inability to vocalize any sound, or mild forms of sleep paralysis during an attack.
Carancas impact event
The Carancas impact event refers to the fall of the Carancas chondritic meteorite on September 15, 2007, near the village of Carancas in Peru, close to the Bolivian border and Lake Titicaca. The impact created a crater and scorched earth around its location. A local official, Marco Limache, said that “boiling water started coming out of the crater, and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby”, as “fetid, noxious” gases spewed from the crater.
After the impact, villagers who had approached the impact site grew sick from a then-unexplained illness, with a wide array of symptoms.Two days later, Peruvian scientists confirmed that there had indeed been a meteorite strike, quieting widespread speculation that it may have been a geophysical rather than a celestial event. At that point, no further information on the cause of the mystery illness was known. The ground water in the local area is known to contain arsenic compounds, and the illness is now believed to have been caused by arsenic poisoning incurred when residents of the area inhaled the vapor of the boiling arsenic-contaminated water.
