Wanna be a smidge happier? Learn about an extremely rare illness discovered in 1882 by the French neurologist Dr. Jules Cotard — if you can read this post, you almost certainly don’t have it. And for that, you will be gladdened.
At his hospital at the Pitié-Salpêtrière University in Paris, the doctor saw a patient known to history only as “Mademoiselle X”. Age 43, the woman shared that she had “no brain, no nerves, no chest, no stomach, no bowels — that there was nothing left of her but the skin and bones”. Furthermore, she said she had no soul, and was merely “a disorganized body” that no longer needed to eat, because she wasn’t really alive. She ended up dying of starvation.
The neurologist diagnosed her with an illness now called “Cotard’s Syndrome,” in which a patient believes themselves dead. He chased medical records of the past and discovered earlier similar cases. Cotard called the sickness the “délire des negations,” and the main symptom is nihilistic delusion. “Typically, patients believe they have lost organs, blood or body parts, or even that they are dead,” write Okan Caliyurt and other authors of a more recent paper on the subject.
Feeling like your organs have melted, that you have no brain, and that you stink of rotting flesh sound like nightmares come true. Fortunately the syndrome has only turned up about 200 known cases since it was discovered — Cotard’s usually is accompanied by other medical conditions like schizophrenia, and there is modern treatment available (granted, when electroconvulsive therapy is the good option, you’re in a bad place).
Sources: _Journal of Psychiatry Neuroscience_, “Cotard’s Syndrome with schizophreniform disorder can be successfully treated with electroconvulsive therapy: case report,” Okan Caliyurt et al, 2004 March 29 (2): 138-141. Medium.com, “Mademoiselle X: living while dead,” Dale M Bromfield, Sept 29, 2020
