New tome reveals bizarre fears of hypochondriacs
By ANIWednesday, July 14, 2010
SYDNEY - A Reader’s Digest writer has compiled every unknown, terrifying and rare illness and disease in a book - especially for hypochondriacs.
The list of phobias includes foreign accent syndrome, cutaneous horn disorder - in which horny growths protrude from your skin, and an Alice in Wonderland syndrome that makes objects appear larger or smaller than they actually are.
There is also human botfly myiasis, which occurs when larvae grow below human skin and emerge six to 10 weeks later.
The topper, though, was “stone man syndrome”, or fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.
“I mean, just the idea of the body fusing and becoming bone was just so bizarre to me and somehow just really scary,” The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Landau as telling USA Today. (ANI)
