~Through the world of Sawbones~

A man with a rare condition made the clinicians in Brazil scratch their heads after the skin on his scalp began to loosen and form the shape of a brain. His ailment has been identified as Cutis Verticis Gyrata,     and is a benign and essentially aesthetic condition. The soft folds that can count up to ten, typically affect the central and back regions of the head, but sometimes cover the entire scalp. The cause of the deformation remains a mystery in most cases. The condition is then classified as “primary CVG”. While it can be present on its own, the condition is often associated with other abnormalities, such as mental deficiency, epilepsy, schizophrenia, seizures, deafness and blindness. This patient has no symptoms of psychiatric or neurological disorders, but is intellectually impaired. “Secondary CVG” is caused by a disease, unbalanced hormones or drugs that lead to changes in scalp structure. For example acromegaly, a syndrome that results when the anterior ...

We all feel blue once in a while, but some people actually are blue. This rare condition is caused by chronic ingestion or inhaling of silver. As a consequence, silver particles accumulate in the skin over time and darken with exposure to sunlight, resulting in an irreversible blue or gray skin tone. Argyria  or  argyrosis  is a  condition   caused by excessive exposure to chemical compounds of the element  silver , or to silver dust. The most dramatic symptom of argyria is that the  skin  turns purple or purple-grey. It may take the form of  generalized argyria  or  local argyria . Generalized argyria affects large areas over much of the visible surface of the body. Local argyria shows in limited regions of the body, such as patches of skin, parts of the  mucous membrane  or the  conjunctiva . In 2007, press reports described Paul Karason, an  American  man whose entire skin gradually turned...

This is what a person looks like when they age 5 times faster than normal; the boy in this photo is only a child. The appearance of people with progeria can be described as small, wrinkled, and hairless with a frail, weak body and large head. Studies have shown that a person with progeria will have the body in a similar condition to that of an 80 year old by the time they are 15! People born with progeria rarely live past their early 20’s as their internal organs cease to function. Scarily, the condition is caused by a random genetic mutation, meaning anyone could potentially have a child with the affliction; fortunately there are only known cases in the world right now, so the chances are pretty slim. Researchers are hopeful that by understanding this condition they can unlock the secrets of the aging process. Progeria was first described in 1886 by  Jonathan Hutchinson . It was also described independently in 1897 by  Hastings Gilford .T he condition was later named ...

Doctors find giant hairball in 12-year-old girl's stomach. Doctors have found a 250 gram hairball inside a 12-year-old girl’s stomach after she complained of pains. Schoolgirl Zhu Xiaoxin has since been diagnose with the rare condition called Rapunzel syndrome which is named after the 19th-century fairytale character created by the Brothers Grimm. Sufferers compulsively eat their own hair, which ends up mostly in their stomach while a ‘tail’ obstructs their small intestine. The schoolgirls’ parents told doctors at Lishui Central Hospital in eastern China that she had complained of stomach pains and had not had a bowel movement in four days. “CT scans showed a foreign mass obstructing her bowels,” the hospital’s head of paediatrics Doctor Zhang Heng said. “The obstruction was very obvious because her stomach contents could only be seen above and not below the object.” However, neither the girl nor her parents were able to ...

  Jyoti Kisange Amge  is an Indian woman and actress notable for being the world's smallest living woman according to  Guinness World Records . Following Amge's 18th birthday on 16 December 2011, she was officially declared the world's smallest woman by  Guinness World Records  with a height of 62.8 centimetres ( 2 ft 0.6 in ). Her restricted height is due to a genetic disorder called  achondroplasia . Achondroplasia  is a disorder of bone growth that prevents the changing of cartilage (particularly in the long bones of the arms and legs) to bone. It is characterized by  dwarfism , limited range of motion at the elbows, large head size (macrocephaly), small fingers, and normal intelligence.  Diagnosis is generally based on symptoms, but may be supported by   genetic testing   if uncertain. Treatments may include  support groups  and  growth hormone therapy . Efforts to treat or prevent complica...

Prithviraj Patil has a condition that makes him look like a werewolf Prithviraj Patil from Maharashtra suffers from an extreme case of Hypertrichosis which is also known as werewolf syndrome. The name stems from the fact that people who have this get dark and thick hair growth all over their faces and bodies. There only about 20 reported cases of this worldwide.

Most people cannot detect the scent of Parkinson’s, but some who have a heightened sense of smell report a distinctive, musky odour on patients. One such “super smeller” is Joy Milne, a former nurse, who first noticed the smell on her husband, Les, 12 years before he was diagnosed. Milne only realised she could sniff out Parkinson’s when she attended a patient support group with her husband and found everyone in the room smelled the same. She thought little more about it until she mentioned the odour to Tilo Kunath, a neurobiologist who studies Parkinson’s at Edinburgh University. Kunath tested Milne’s skills by having her sniff T-shirts worn by either healthy people or Parkinson’s patients. Milne identified all those worn by the patients and said one more T-shirt bore the same scent. Eight months later, the wearer was diagnosed with the disease. Joy milne: