# Favorite Fictional...Diseases? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 27, 2003, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333 "2003-07-27T23:39:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/41 "2003-07-30T03:24:42Z")
Was taking report at work and the L&D RN said this baby looked FLK to her, flat forehead, low-set ears. During my ER rotation the doctor said the screaming child in bed 4 had SB syndrome. **FLK** : Funny looking kid **SB** : Spoiled brat ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/42 "2003-07-30T12:57:51Z")
Clayark disease in Octavia Butler’s **Clay’s Ark** and **Patternmaster**. (Actually, Patternmaster was written first, and Clay’s Ark is something of a sequel. Butler also postulated a disease in her short story “Speech Sounds,” about a plague that affects the speech centers of the brain – some people can’t speak, while others can’t understand language. Lepcer in Alfred Bester’s **The Computer Connection** , a combination of leprosy and cancer. Connie Willis wrote a short story about a disease that turns your skin into a shell-like consistency. The Wandering Sickness in **Things to Come** I believe the disease that Katherine Mortenhoe has in **Deathwatch** (aka **La Mort en direct** , from the novel **The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe** / **The Unsleeping Eye** ) was meant to be a new disease, set in a time when people never died young. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/43 "2003-07-30T13:23:50Z")
AIDS. What? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/44 "2003-07-30T14:46:49Z")
The Curse of the Black Pearl ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/45 "2003-07-30T15:46:32Z")
Rage-aholism. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/46 "2003-07-30T17:22:19Z")
Kryptonite Poisoning. 🆒 BTW–I _was_ thinling of the Lycanthropy that produces an actual physical transformation. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Gretchen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Miss\_Gretchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Gretchen)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/47 "2003-07-30T17:38:45Z")
The condition known as HOT DOG FINGERS! This was on a commercial a few years ago. I think it was for an exterminator, where a “bug” starts running across the screen during what’s supposed to be a normal commercial. It started out like a regular prescription drug ad, with sad looking people who ultimately triumphantly… have a picnic or something. The narrator starts listing off in a rapid fire voice about the possible effects of this “drug” and one of the dreaded potential symptons was “the condition known as hot dog fingers” ---
**Author:** ![skeptic\_ev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@skeptic\_ev](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skeptic_ev)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/48 "2003-07-30T20:32:24Z")
Well, the _disease_ isn’t fictional, but the setting is: the chicken pox that killed the Martians in Ray Bradbury’s _Martian Chronicles_. Along the same vein, the bacteria that killed the Martians in H.G. Wells’s “War of the Worlds.” ---
**Author:** ![skeptic\_ev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@skeptic\_ev](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skeptic_ev)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/49 "2003-07-30T20:36:55Z")
BTW, thanks, **Max Carnage**. I’ve always wondered what the vapors are. ---
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/50 "2003-07-31T07:54:56Z")
There was a piece of IF (interactive fiction) released a bunch of years back now, titled **Glowgrass** , with something called “the Green Plague” that was never really explained in great detail. From my rather spotty memory of it (it’s been a while since I played this one, now) the player discovers that the thing prompted fairly liberal worldwide use of nukes to contain its spread, to no avail. The name just sticks in my head, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/51 "2003-08-03T22:07:50Z")
The vapors are GAS? I thought it was just an excuse for fainting, brought on by uber tight corsets, that could only be cured by having a quick mint julep with the gallant Tarlatan twins. GAS? That tosses water on my romantic notions. Gas indeed… ---
**Author:** ![Bugnorton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bugnorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bugnorton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/52 "2003-08-04T00:08:57Z")
Nooo…the vapors aren’t fancy flatulation, folks…check out the perfume bottle article on [this site](http://www.mentalfloss.com/archives/archive020.htm). I knew it had to do with heat exhaustion, but since, Damnit Jim, I’m not a doctor! I wanted to be prepared with a little back-up. **Zoggie** , once more can you embrace that romantic, and oh so true, idealization of Southern Femininity. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/53 "2003-08-04T04:33:01Z")
Thank you, **Bugnorton**. You are a true gentlemen among dopers! You have restored my faith in a world that consisted of beautiful accents and irritating underwear. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/54 "2003-08-04T18:30:28Z")
Oh puhleez! I didn’t see Cecil’s signature anywhere ON that article. How can you take it with a grain of anything? As a Southerner born and raised, I stand by my gassiness! Wait, that didn’t come out right… Neither did that… ---
**Author:** ![Bugnorton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bugnorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bugnorton)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333/55 "2003-08-05T02:22:28Z")
And I sir, stand by my corsets…er petticoats…oh forget it…it’s damned heat exhaustion, accept it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-fictional-diseases/191333.md?page=2)