What we can learn from 'untranslatable' illnesses

By Zaria Gorvett
7th June 2020

From an enigmatic rage disorder to a sickness of overthinking, there are some mental illnesses you only get in certain cultures. Why? And what can they teach us?

“DO NOT FEAR KORO,” screamed the headline in the Straits Times newspaper on November 7, 1967. In the preceding days, a peculiar phenomenon had swept across Singapore. Thousands of men had spontaneously become convinced that their penises were shrinking away – and that the loss would eventually kill them.

Mass hysteria had quickly taken hold. Men desperately tried to hold onto their genitals, using whatever they had to hand – rubber bands, clothes pegs, string. Unscrupulous local doctors cashed in, recommending various injections and traditional remedies.

The word on the street was that the sudden penis withering was caused by something the men had eaten. Specifically, the locals were suspicious of meat from pigs that had been vaccinated in a programme the government had imposed on Singaporean farms. Pork sales quickly plummeted.

Though public health officials scrambled to contain the hysteria outbreak, explaining that it was caused by “psychological fear” alone, it didn’t work. In the end, over 500 people sought treatment at public hospitals.

More:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200604-what-we-can-learn-from-untranslatable-illnesses