- From people that can’t stop dancing to one of the most feared diseases of the century, we count 14 diseases that science can’t explain.
14 – Dancing Mania,
- The dancing plague of 1518 is the most prominent outbreak of dancing mania in history, where 400 people began to start dancing in Strasbourg in July and didn’t stop dancing for a long time.
- Some of the people afflicted danced for a period of about a month, many of those that danced suffered from heart attacks stroke and all had some level of exhaustion.
- To this day scientists don’t know what caused dancing mania, it’s assumed to be a social phenomenon of a psychological origin but for all we know it’s a type of brain altering virus of some kind.
13 – Exploding Head Syndrome,
- It’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds, but it’s still interesting and the cause is still largely unknown.
- Exploding head syndrome is a type of auditory hallucination where those afflicted with it hear loud, non-existent, noises or an explosive feeling when they’re about to fall asleep or as they’re waking up.
- It’s worth noting that this isn’t the same thing as that falling feeling you get sometimes when you’re going to sleep, but it’s possibly related.
12 – Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome,
- Another poorly named disorder, but an interesting one nonetheless, the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine showed extremely exaggerated startle reflexes to the point where it was restricting their ability to live a normal life.
- The men that suffered from this disability the worst would obey any command if it was given suddenly enough, even if it meant striking someone they loved.
- The cause for this disorder is still unknown but it’s theorised that it could be a genetic condition, there’s other theories where it’s a behavioural disorder caused by a formed habit of positive reinforcement.
11 – Bleeding Calf Syndrome,
- This disease causes calves of 21 days or younger to bleed excessively, although the worst of the bleeding is internal and this is generally what causes the calves to die.
- While vets have figured out what causes the bleeding, a lack of a vital aspect in the blood called Platelets, this can happen in other animals but there’s still a lot they don’t understand.
- For instance they don’t know why the calves are lacking in platelets, they also don’t know if the disease is even infectious or if there’s any risk of it transferring to humans via mutation.
10 – Water Allergy,
- While this disease isn’t actually an allergy as it isn’t related to histamines, it’s still a negative reaction that some people have when they come in contact with water.
- Usually the symptoms involve hives when exposed to water on their skin, although in some extreme cases people even get swelling in their oral region when attempting to drink water.
- But this isn’t a reaction that is caused by impurities like chlorine like you might suspect, as the scientists have conducted trials with distilled water and medical saline.
- There’s no known cause for this type of urticarial and treatment is difficult.
9 – Sweating Sickness,
- This was a disease that started in England in 1485 and it spread quickly throughout Britain and eventually spread to mainland Europe.
- The symptoms were a high amount of sweat, cold shivers, giddiness a headache and once symptoms showed up it usually only took a couple hours before the patient would die.
- Most people think that it was caused by poor sanitation, but it’s still largely unknown exactly what about this caused the sickness and why it hasn’t appeared again in poorly sanitised areas in the modern era.
8 – Brainerd Diarrhoea,
- This disease comes suddenly and once the symptoms arise they don’t go away for months, or sometimes even years.
- The diarrhoea is described as watery and explosive and it’s not treatable with antibiotics, there have been ten reports of the disease since 1983 and nine of them were in the United States.
- It’s generally thought to be caused by consuming raw milk and untreated water, but while this is mostly accepted amongst the medical industry it’s mostly unproven and could just be an irrelevant correlation.