My exercise book for the second half of Grade Four (written when I was nine) contained a glossary. Being unfamiliar with the word “glossary”, I called it “The Helper of understanding the story’s in this book Dictionary“.
Most of the entries were diseases. Fictional diseases, that I’d made up. This would have been around the same age that I asked Uncle Rodney (a doctor) to identify the worst disease he’d ever heard of (he nominated several, but I don’t recall which).
Here are some examples:
acetha
a disease inwich a plant grows on the scull and scratches the brain causing things to go out of Control.
betstonia
A disease inwich the parts of the body fight with eachother
deathia
A disease inwich the whole body turns to jelly couvered in thick blood dead on the ground.
Fishaminatearia
A disease inwich the blood turns to mud.
hotstonia
A disease inwich every thing swells up and gets sores on it and the blood goes thick. The worst place for it is the heart
Rhostonia
A disease inwich a scab from a sore floats in your body choping your heart, brain and lunghs
superitisitislessmixcutexpialladosia
A disease inwich every thing goes alful except the skin
All very well, but I wonder what House would make of all this. Certainly the only time you would want to consult a fictional doctor is when you are suffering from a fictional disease.
Actually, it’s worth pointing out that some of these diseases aren’t that far from reality. For example, betstonia sounds like one of the nastier autoimmune diseases, and rhostonia is much like a thromboembolism but with razor-sharp edges.
