Doctors — The Superheroes in White Coats!
Doctors around the world deal with strange and unexpected medical cases all the time. This month, let’s raise a toast to them and hope that they continue curing challenging health problems through their innovative ways and skills!
A laughing epidemic attacks schoolchildren
It started harmlessly enough in 1962 in Tanganyika in Tanzania — three girls giggling helplessly in class (who doesn’t do that?), but soon, nearly 95 of the 159 pupils in the school began to laugh uncontrollably, and this laughing epidemic forced the school to be closed in March. Alas, when it reopened in May, there was a second outbreak affecting 57 students. The symptoms of uncontrollable laughter ranged from a few hours to a scary 16 days in some cases! Soon, many other schools in the 100-mile radius were also affected. While the schools probably considered it a big ‘student’ conspiracy to miss classes, doctors, however, considered it as a stress-induced response in the young population.
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Rama Ramesh is a creative writer who has written stories and features for children’s magazines and has co-authored a series of nanotechnology books for kids.
