Did you know? In July 1979, a physician wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine to report on a novel kind of felon (felon = finger injury) caused by snapping one's fingers too much to disco music. He named this condition Disco Felon. Later that year, a reader wrote to the journal suggesting that a better name would be Disco Digit.
I don’t know if either of these stuck, but Disco Felon has my vote because most of the music from that decade was downright criminal.
Stranger things happened in the 80s too. A 1981 article in NEJM reported on a condition called “Space Invaders wrist.” And in 1983 the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism published an article on “Pac-Man phalanx.”
Any Disco Felons out there in our midst? What's the strangest ailment you've come across?------------------------------
Penny Schnarrs
Virtual Communities Program Manager
Association of American Medical Colleges
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