Hi, I have an assignment to complete on a disease and am looking for one that is particularly gruesome/disgusting. It may seem like some strange criteria but it is what I require. Any names would be great, thanks :thumbsup:

cancer is a killer, leopracy

Ebola virus is pretty unpleasant, not least because it's uniformly fatal. But before that there's lots of bleeding from orifices (to quote Hawkwind's track Sonic Attack) and the suchlike.

Gave up on the non-existant bone dissolving disease then?

Guinea Worm isn't a disease but a rather funky parasite. You catch it by drinking infected water in certain African countries which contains guinea worm eggs. A worm then grows inside the body, up to three feet long. Eventually a sore develops on the skin and the end of the worm protrudes out. This end of the worm then has to be wrapped around something and gradually wound around it to pull it out (and by gradually this means weeks or months).

ebola
that skin eating thingy?
cancers nasty, not really gruesome

look on rotton.com, might be something on there

Umm....according to Billy Connolly there's one that makes you smell like rotting fish.

Just found it online here (http://www.drdonnica.com/today/00006748.htm)

:gag: The poor buggers!

Smallpox (Variola)


Small pox is notable in the history of medicine for two very important reasons; it is the first human disease for which there was a vaccine, and it is the first human disease to have been totally eradicated -- wiped from the face of the earth. It is also notable, or perhaps notorious, for being instrumental in allowing white men to conquer the Western Hemisphere. It was, in fact, the first agent of germ warfare. The Spaniards first introduced smallpox into the Western Hemisphere where it rapidly caused the death of millions of native Indians who had had no preceeding experience with the virus and hence were extremely susceptible. Later, North American colonists gave the Indians blankets contaminated with smallpox scabs, and they rapidly succumbed. On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner in England inoculated 8-yr old James Phipps with pus from a cowpox lesion on the hand of a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes. Jenner had noticed that milkmaids rarely got smallpox and were thus unusually beautiful as most of the rest of the population was disfigured with severe smallpox scarring. He hypothesized that the milkmaids were immune due to their natural contraction of cowpox. James Phipps was shown to be immune when challenged with the smallpox virus. While on first blush this seems a heartless experiment to do, inoculation with live smallpox virus was an accepted practice of the day. Called variolation, it was known to produce a milder form of the disease than natural infection and to provide immunity against the natural disease. Vaccination was, of course, even better than variolation as there was no chance of actually getting smallpox as there was with variolation. Vaccination was a highly successful form of prevention of smallpox well into the latter half of the twentieth century. In fact, it was so successful that it enabled the complete eradication of the disease from the face of the earth. A WHO worldwide program combining vaccination and quarantine was successful and in 1971 the disease ceased to exist. The fact that the virus infected humans exclusively, did not cause asymptomatic infections, had a single serotype and causes a disease that is easily diagnosed on clinical grounds were other factors that led to the eradication of the disease. Smallpox now exists only (hopefully) in the freezers of research laboratories at two sites in the world. While it is sometimes mentioned as a agent of germ warfare it is not known to be in the hands of any who would use it thusly. Vaccination is no longer performed except for researchers working specifically with vaccinia virus. Small pox was, without a doubt, one of the most horrible diseases that ever existed and its eradication is one of man's greatest triumphs.

Look here (http://medinfo.ufl.edu/year2/mmid/bms5300/bugs/smallpox.html)

Epidermis Bullosa and Harlequin Ichthyosis are both very distressing and ultimately fatal skin diseases. The first makes the patient's skin as fragile as that of a butterfly's wing, and the second makes the skin grow seven times faster than normal, so the patient must spend hours of every days scrubbing themselves so as not to be suffocated by their own dead skin.

I've contrubuted to this post on the understanding that it's for genuine research purposes, but I truly hope that nobody on this thread finds either of the above diseases, or any of the others put forward, amusing. I've met child sufferers of both EB and Harlequins, and both meetings made me feel both incredibly lucky and extremely wretched.

Best wishes x

I can assure you JBee, that it is for research purposes only.

I was looking at smallpox but there aren't enough figures around. I will continue to search though.

Rabies isn't the most gruesome disease there is but it could be the best one on which to base an assignment because different governments have dealt with the risk of transmission from animals to humans in different ways. Britain's island status meant quarantine was a very effective policy but in a country with land borders such as France the possibility of infected wild animals entering your territory is much higher so quarantine wouldn't be as effective.

I think that emperor Galerius had it really bad.

A huge ulcer engulfed his genitles - an ulcer that kept growing and rotting (filled with worms nd maggots)

It seemed as though his body was slowly liquifing as he rotted to death.

and one of his last acts (from his death bed) was to cancel neros persecutution of the christians.

Jealousy-It wrecks lives!!!

Alcoholism is classed as a disease.

Try http://www.straightdope.com/classics/al_283.html

Lots of lovely side effects there as well as the social variety, and they have missed out one or two other side effects as well, like oesophageal varices, which can kill you in very short order.

Originally posted by wayne72
Jealousy-It wrecks lives!!!

You should see me with my clothes on:confused:

How about elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis)? That seems pretty awful. I remember seeing a photograph of a poor African man who had to carry his grossly enlarged testicles (still attached) around in a wheelbarrow. It was in one of my Geography textbooks.

The extreme inflammation is caused by parasitic worms, which are transmitted by mosquitos.

My second thought was ebola hemorrhagic fever, which was already mentioned in an earlier post. One of the symptoms is bleeding from the eyes and it's fatal, I believe, in 50 to 90 percent of the cases.

Whats the worst disease you know? Bad Aids

What happened to the bone liquefaction disease? I was looking forward to finding out what that was...

Get yourself to a library, or to Waterstones (better still, try the Uni bookshop), and browse through a medical textbook. Even better, find one on medical microbiology. Look for the section on tropical diseases, specifically parasitic infections. You'll find lots of examples there.

Be careful what you search for on Google though. You might find more than you bargained for. There're some very nasty web sites out there.

Ebola or heroin/crack addiction, both nasty as owt.

marriage it ruins everybodies life

religion that's killed more people than anything else:D

Originally posted by parcher
Alcoholism is classed as a disease.

Try http://www.straightdope.com/classics/al_283.html

Lots of lovely side effects there as well as the social variety, and they have missed out one or two other side effects as well, like oesophageal varices, which can kill you in very short order.


What you trying to say??? I only enjoy the odd tipple!!! or 2, or 3, or ...... :suspect:

:hihi: thought it was quite funny, as it was under my post :D I supposed you had to be there at the time :hihi:

Probably Aids because you get loads of other diseases because of that dont u? And its incurable.

Originally posted by x_Sunshine_x
Probably Aids because you get loads of other diseases because of that dont u? And its incurable.

Err no known cure as yet.

The Aids virus is used in medical research, there are much worse deseases.

Originally posted by venger
Err no known cure as yet.

The Aids virus is used in medical research...
As are most - if not all - other viruses that cause disease. Not sure I understand your comment.

I had a friend died this year of an illness with no diagnosis.
Consultants said they did not know why his brain had these white patches which spread.
No balance, no speach, no muscle tone, double sight, couldn't swallow, no dignity.

hazel

Originally posted by x_Sunshine_x
Probably Aids because you get loads of other diseases because of that dont u? And its incurable.


Yep, I wouldn't want that bugger again!