Mad Medicine

Previous legend || Mad Medicine || Next legend

Bad Hair Day

Debunked: An autopsy reveals big hairballs in lungs of a man who breathed in bits of hair while he worked, and thus suffocated him.

No cases of this are on record.

Documented: Girl dies of big hairball in stomach from chewing on ends of her braids.

This one has some truth to it; there are several cases of trichobezoars (the technical, and much more exciting, term for hairball) causing intestinal problems, almost always in adolescent girls, usually with psychiatric disorders. The condition has been dubbed "The Rapunzel syndrome."

However, the legend as usually told implies that this happens to girls who indulge in normal (if nervous) hair chewing. This is not true; the degree of hair chewing in the "Rapunzel Syndrome" is abnormal, and generally associated with other psychiatric disorders. References: Klin Padiatr. 1999 Sep-Oct;211(5):420-2; Am J Gastroenterol. 1999 Jul;94(7):1970-1; West Indian Med J. 1994 Jun;43(2):63-5. Also: TMP

References:

• CT Scan Files -Trichobezoar