13 replies to this topic

[Archaeaologist]

I'm looking for fictional diseases for my microbe identification game. I'll keep editing this post as I add more diseases, but what I'm really looking for are some ideas for cool and original diseases, so please post some if you have any.

Diseases so far:

Bacillus vampiris - Vampirism - Transforms the patient into a vampire
Bacillus unsubtilis - Loud-Mouth Syndrome - This disease forces the patient to be loud and boisterous whenever possible
Bacillus waterpallius - Jack & Jill Syndrome - Causes extreme thirst, leading to the patient's going to extremes to find water. As the disease progresses, the patient's skull softens until it eventually cracks, leading to a broken crown.
Listeria balditis - Balditis - The patient is afflicted with severe baldness in all parts of the body.
Listeria stomapodis - Foot-in-Mouth Disease - The patient starts growing primitive feet in his or her mouth leading to both a difficulty in ingestion and speech.
Clostridium sharpus (C. sharpus) - The Santana Flu - Greatly enhances your ability to play complex guitar riffs, but also makes your hands extremely sensitive to pressure so that playing the guitar leaves blisters, bruises, and gashes across your fingers and palms.
Streptococcus lycanthropus - Lycanthropy - Transforms the patient into a werewolf
Streptococcus tigrithropus - Tigranthropy - Transforms the patient into a weretiger
Streptococcus torosis - Bull Baida Horn Disease - The patient becomes extremely sensitive to both the color red and any waving motions. They will lash out and attack anyone or anything with those properties.
Staphylococcus necrogenesis - Zombieism - Transforms the patient into a zombie
Staphylococcus moronosis - Moron Disease - Kills off the brain cells responsible for learning, grammar, and keeping opinions to oneself
Staphylococcus arias - Singing Syndrome - The patient is forced to use singing to communicate instead of speech
Staphylococcus meetosis - Staph Meeting Delusion - Causes massive adrenaline surges whenever the patient is in a group of 4 or more people, leading to the false appearance that the patient is deathly afraid of business meetings. Oddly, it doesn't cause stage fright if the patient is the only one on stage, but no one knows why. A team once tried to perform a study to find out, but once the volunteers saw how many other people participated, they all simultaneously dropped out.
Vibrio intoxicatis - Perpetual Intoxication - Forces the patient into a state of unending drunkenness
Vibrio dorianitis - Cute Cat Syndrome - Causes the patient to want to love cats at the neglect of everything else
Legionella necrosis - Epithelial Necrosis - Causes skin cells and the out layer of most organs to whither and die
Yersinia insectis - Fly Fester - Causes the patient to grow compound eyes and antennae all over his or her skin
Enterobacter erogenes - Bawdy Tunes Bug - The patient can't stop singing bawdy tunes, not even to eat or drink
Enterobacter mentirosus - Pants On Fire Syndrome - Makes the patient unable to tell even the blandest truths. Strangely, if they're caught in a lie, they feel compelled to smack their own bottoms as though putting out a flame. It's not lethal to the person, but it's certainly lethal to their social lives.
Escherichia colonoscopi - Cantankerous Bowel Syndrome - The patient is afflicted with severe diarrhea, which leads to severe dehydration
Escherichia mauritscornelis - Inverted Reality Syndrome - The patient is unable to navigate normal spaces easily, but becomes adept at traveling through impossible mazes a la MC Escher. Researchers believe it is an infection that targets the visual cortex and, in medical terms, "gets it all scrambled up and stuff".
Ruminococcus furiosus - Cow Mad Disease - Causes the patient to become inexplicably attracted to all things bovine
Neisseria quackus - Duck Pox - Pustules form and rupture on the patient's skin; as they rupture, they make a "quacking" sound. Duck Pox is fatal; don't joke about Duck Pox.
Neisseria gigantus - Large Pox - Large boils form and disfigure the patient's skin. Other than that, though, the disease is benign.
Neisseria punditus - Pundit Pox - Produces a distinct red-and-black rash over all the patient's skin, and also makes the patient believe he's an expert...in everything. If he doesn't know something, he'll pretend he does anyway. Often, sufferers of Pundit Pox will attempt to spread their imaginary knowledge via television and radio.
Moraxella mozzarella - Pizza Face - The epithelial cells of the patient's face are replaced with cheese and pepperoni
Acinetobacter fascisto - Mussolini Madness - The patient has an uncontrollable need to dress up as Benito Mussolini and overthrow the government
Acinetobacter femodeitus - Dancing Nun Disease - The patient has the sudden urge to dress up as a nun and dance around
Mycobacterium petrificosis - Petrification Disease - Causes the patient to slowly turn to stone
Mycobacterium cannibalis - Cannibal Fever - Gives the patient an insatiable hunger for human flesh
Dementus insectoderma - Creepy Crawly Disease - Causes the patient to itch and hallucinate bugs under the skin. If left untreated, the hallucinations become worse until, if uncured, he literally tears his skin off with his nails trying to get the bugs out.

Edited by Archaeaologist, 27 April 2012 - 07:33 PM.

[junhalestone]

Looks cool - are you making a game where you can infect patients with diseases, or just examine them?

[Archaeaologist]

Looks cool - are you making a game where you can infect patients with diseases, or just examine them?

Right now just examine them, which is why they're all bacterial diseases. Here's the topic with the original idea: Medical Microbiologist Game Idea

[chance]

Pedo-deititus -- an obsessive desire to visit playgrounds while dressed as a priest.

Recto-cranial inversion -- having your head up your *ss.

fascisto-mimicism -- unhealthy desire to dress like Benito Mussolini.

mortus ambulas -- walking corpse syndrome (Keith Richards suffers from this).

[Archaeaologist]

Added to the list; keep 'em coming.

[Erik Leppen]

You should play Theme Hospital.

[Futhark]

Foot-in-mouth disease - The patient always says the wrong thing under the most inconvenient of circumstances (name based on "Foot and Mouth" disease).

Baldinitis - A severe case of complete lack of cranial hair.

[IceMetalPunk]

You know what I love most about your list? Staphylococcus arias. Why? Because certain types of Broca's aphasia (caused by brain damage) have the exact effect you described. The people can't speak (or when they try, they don't make any sense), but they can sing perfectly fine. A common therapy for these patients is to teach them to apply melody to everything they say, allowing them to communicate. The brain is a fascinating thing .

Is there a reason you're keeping the taxonomic families limited to real ones, like Bacillus, Staphylococcus, etc.? I only ask because adding new families, such as Sanguinus (for blood-sucking related diseases), could be interesting.

How about these:

Dementus insectoderma - Creepy Crawly Disease - Causes the patient to itch and hallucinate bugs under the skin. If left untreated, the hallucinations become worse until, if uncured, he literally tears his skin off with his nails trying to get the bugs out.

E. mentirosus - Pants On Fire Syndrome - Makes the patient unable to tell even the blandest truths. Strangely, if they're caught in a lie, they feel compelled to smack their own bottoms as though putting out a flame. It's not lethal to the person, but it's certainly lethal to their social lives.

B. waterpallius - Jack & Jill Syndrome - Causes extreme thirst, leading to the patient's going to extremes to find water. As the disease progresses, the patient's skull softens until it eventually cracks, leading to a broken crown.

S. torosis - Bull Baida Horn Disease - The patient becomes extremely sensitive to both the color red and any waving motions. They will lash out and attack anyone or anything with those properties.

-IMP

[Archaeaologist]

You know what I love most about your list? Staphylococcus arias. Why? Because certain types of Broca's aphasia (caused by brain damage) have the exact effect you described. The people can't speak (or when they try, they don't make any sense), but they can sing perfectly fine. A common therapy for these patients is to teach them to apply melody to everything they say, allowing them to communicate. The brain is a fascinating thing .

Is there a reason you're keeping the taxonomic families limited to real ones, like Bacillus, Staphylococcus, etc.? I only ask because adding new families, such as Sanguinus (for blood-sucking related diseases), could be interesting.

How about these:

Dementus insectoderma - Creepy Crawly Disease - Causes the patient to itch and hallucinate bugs under the skin. If left untreated, the hallucinations become worse until, if uncured, he literally tears his skin off with his nails trying to get the bugs out.

E. mentirosus - Pants On Fire Syndrome - Makes the patient unable to tell even the blandest truths. Strangely, if they're caught in a lie, they feel compelled to smack their own bottoms as though putting out a flame. It's not lethal to the person, but it's certainly lethal to their social lives.

B. waterpallius - Jack & Jill Syndrome - Causes extreme thirst, leading to the patient's going to extremes to find water. As the disease progresses, the patient's skull softens until it eventually cracks, leading to a broken crown.

S. torosis - Bull Baida Horn Disease - The patient becomes extremely sensitive to both the color red and any waving motions. They will lash out and attack anyone or anything with those properties.

-IMP

Mostly keeping things in known genuses to better organize them in my mind and to have a launching board for their classification. I don't have a problem adding novel genuses at all, but I want to try to keep the tests contained to real world tests (and simple ones at that) as much as possible. As for S. arias, yes, I've heard of Broca's aphasia, but S. arias is just a pun that happened to coincide with a "humorous in the right light" real life condition. At any rate, I love all of your diseases and will definitely have to include them in the game. Looks like I might need a Disease Creation credits section in the game.

[IceMetalPunk]

Mostly keeping things in known genuses to better organize them in my mind and to have a launching board for their classification. I don't have a problem adding novel genuses at all, but I want to try to keep the tests contained to real world tests (and simple ones at that) as much as possible. As for S. arias, yes, I've heard of Broca's aphasia, but S. arias is just a pun that happened to coincide with a "humorous in the right light" real life condition. At any rate, I love all of your diseases and will definitely have to include them in the game. Looks like I might need a Disease Creation credits section in the game.

Ah, yeah. Guess I didn't think about how you'd manage to classify the organisms using real taxonomy if they're in an imaginary genus. It goes to show how organized I usually am, doesn't it?

Glad you liked those ideas. Here's some more brainstorming:

B. punditus - Pundit Pox - Produces a distinct red-and-black rash over all the patient's skin, and also makes the patient believe he's an expert...in everything. If he doesn't know something, he'll pretend he does anyway. Often, sufferers of Pundit Pox will attempt to spread their imaginary knowledge via television and radio.

Clostridium sharpus (C. sharpus) - The Santana Flu - Greatly enhances your ability to play complex guitar riffs, but also makes your hands extremely sensitive to pressure so that playing the guitar leaves blisters, bruises, and gashes across your fingers and palms.

S. meeting - Staph Meeting Delusion - Causes massive adrenaline surges whenever the patient is in a group of 4 or more people, leading to the false appearance that the patient is deathly afraid of business meetings. Oddly, it doesn't cause stage fright if the patient is the only one on stage, but no one knows why. A team once tried to perform a study to find out, but once the volunteers saw how many other people participated, they all simultaneously dropped out.

Escherichia MC - Inverted Reality Syndrome - The patient is unable to navigate normal spaces easily, but becomes adept at traveling through impossible mazes a la MC Escher. Researchers believe it is an infection that targets the visual cortex and, in medical terms, "gets it all scrambled up and stuff".

-IMP

[Archaeaologist]

Well, it's not as bad as all that. It just means I have to classify the new genus in terms of morphology and cell wall composition. Dementus, for instance, is now an acid-fast rod.

[faissialoo]

mishy mesales : highly infectous , measles on the inside of your body

[Futhark]

Spongeous Bobus - Causes patient to yell "I'M READY!" for no apparent reason. (Confidence +5 if this were an RPG stat)
Spongeous Bobus Extremeus - Same as above but this time the patient can regenerate limbs out of the blue very quickly.
Squidwardus Tentacleous Boringus - Causes patient to be apathetic and uncooperative.

Edwardus, Eddieous et Eddington - Causes a group of three patients to succumb to causing elaborate pranks in the hopes of monetary gains and/or Jawbreakers.

Oh, shucks ... you said non-© stuff. Hmmm, you're doing so well with transcribing the names to the Latin nomenclature that you can probably get away with it somehow

[chance]

Bacillus Disney -- bizarre bacteria that infects inanimate objects (such a tea pots, mops, and wooden puppets) causing them to behave as if they're alive.

Listeria Pinocchio -- causes enlarged nasal growth, resembling wood.

Bacillus Mexicali -- We don't need no stinkin' penicillin.