The most disturbing unsolved medical mysteries

If we take a look at the medical knowledge accumulated over the past two centuries and then associate them with our doctors and medical professionals, it may seem impossible to even comprehend the answer “I don’t know.” as a result to our condition. The very treatment written down by the medic himself is a unique type of relief – the assurance that whatever you may be suffering from is getting good taking care of. That is, of course, until the doctors don’t have an answer. And not just a few professionals – dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands from around the world. That’s when things get out of control, and disturbing outcomes often arise. Recorded history was keen enough, however, to never forget the phenomena that simply never received a clear answer. These are the stories that haunted the medical world for years upon end and that continue to also represent a “second phenomenon” these days – not a medical one, but a social one. As we may come to realize, after telling the stories over and over and over again, until they finally reached these pages, we finally understand that one subject can never receive too much attention…

1.      The case of Gloria Ramirez

Nicknamed “The toxic lady”, by the media, Gloria Ramirez’s case has become and is currently believed to be one of the strangest phenomenas in recorded medical history.

              It all started on February 19, 1994, when 31 year old Gloria Ramirez was taken to the hospital, because of breathing difficulties and an irregular heartbeat. The woman had been feeling nauseous and suffered from vomiting in the previous days and was also diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. After arriving at the hospital in a semiconscious state, her condition got worse, which resulted in the need of getting a cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The staff mentioned that she had vomited after intubation. The strange side of the case became noticed when staff mentioned an oily, shimmering sheen on her body, as well as an ammonia-like odor coming from the patient. Other members of the staff reported a garlic-like smell emitted from her mouth. The situation escalated after a nurse draw blood from the woman and noticed white-colored crystals in the liquid. Soon after, the nurse fainted, and the physician that took her place did as well, while also having convulsions. In the following minutes, more and more members of the medical staff started becoming ill, with symptoms including dizziness, headaches, respiratory irritation, tearing, nausea, and vomiting. People were soon evacuated, while HAZMAT suits were offered to the staff that assisted Gloria. 35 minutes after her arrival, the patient was announced dead. 23 members of the staff fell ill while examining her, and 6 even needed hospitalization.

What haunted the medical experts is how could a person possibly hold a poison so strong that if affected so many people. After all, no toxin or vapor was identified, neither in the patient’s body, nor in the hospital room. Eventually, Gloria’s death was listed as dysrhythmia due to renal failure. Initially, one theory proposed was that the chain reaction of the illness was caused by nothing more than mass hysteria, triggered by the coincidental fainting of the original nurse. However, this theory was excluded by a lot of people, given the severity of the symptoms of some of the patients.

When biological material was sent to the Forensic Science Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California though, a more accepted theory was elaborated, which may answer what exactly happened on that day. The researchers found a substance called dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2) in the patient’s blood and bile samples. This is a breakdown product of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a substance derived from wood pulp and used in pain killer medication, including for cancer. However, given this substance is excreted by kidneys, and that Gloria suffered from renal failure, the substance should have been accumulated in her body. The only clue specialists have regarding consumption of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is the discovery of dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2). This would also explain the crystals found in her blood, as this substance was proven to crystallize at the internal temperature of the human body. It is also important to notice that another breakdown product of DMSO, called dimethyl sulfide ((CH3)2S), emits a garlic-like odor, which may be what the staff has smelt.

The process that sickened the staff member, however, is explained by a more obscure and complicated phenomenon. The researchers explained how during the process in which Gloria was resuscitated, the extra oxygen pumped into her body might have combined with the dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2), resulting in a new compound called dimethyl sulfate (DMSO4). This compound is extremely toxic if inhaled or absorbed through skin and its effects on the human body include dizziness, prostration, headache, convulsions, coma, pulmonary irritation, lung injury, and slow heart rate (which is called bradycardia). These are the exact symptoms recorded by the affected staff.

To this day, however, nobody can really explain what happened to Gloria Ramirez, as the investigation only resulted in a theory, making it one of the most disturbing cases that medical specialists ever had to deal with.

2.      The case of Tarrare

Tarrare was a French spy and showman who lived in the 18th century, that baffled doctors and medical professionals from his era due to his extreme unknown condition, which gave him an unnatural appetite for food. Tarrare was said to eat giant portions of food – sometimes as much as four men, yet his hunger never stopped, and despite the copious amount of calories he consumed daily, he always looked tired and malnourished. Today, we know that this condition is called polyphagia and that it represents an eating disorder, however, Tarrare was not made famous by the symptoms of the condition alone, but by the uncanny characteristics of both his aspect and mentality.

Tarrare’s body could stretch in strange ways, and people described that his belly became extremely swollen because of the quantity of food consumes. His jaw was also incredibly flexible, allowing him to swallow and hold giant portions. It was also recorded that his body smelled disgusting, some claiming his horrible smell could be detected from great distances away.

Records report him consuming even inedible objects, such as corks, stones and even a pocket watch. During his grotesque shows he would even eat raw animals while still alive, such as dogs, cats and even eels. Although just disturbing at first, the situation legally escalated when he was caught eating human flesh from cadavers at morgues. And at the time he became notorious for his acts, Tarrare was even rumored to have eaten a 14 month old baby, that disappeared, however, this was never confirmed, and Tarrare was never charged for any crime, even though he was fired from the army.

When he died from tuberculosis, in 1798, doctors had the opportunity to finally make his autopsy. What they found inside horrified them: his intestines, liver and internal organs were putrid and rotten. His stomach was disturbingly enlarged, covering almost the entire insides of the abdomen, which made the doctors realize that the condition was almost dictated from his own body, given his internal adaptations to his peculiar diet. And if the smell emitting from his skin was bad, the one from inside was described as unbearable – so unbearable, in fact, that the autopsy had to be stopped, as the medical professionals became sick.

Although Tarrare is mostly remembered as a creepy and obscure personality, tied to unnatural and disturbing eating habits, he stands as having one of the most interesting physiognomies ever recorded in medical history and a body that continues to shock doctors to this day.

3.      The case of the Encephalitis lethargica epidemic

Encephalitis lethargica is the name of a strange disease that ravaged the whole globe from 1915 to 1931, and was recorded in the medical history as one of the weirdest conditions to ever manifest.

The disease itself was sudden, and many times appeared on people who previously had flu-like conditions, such as fevers and sore throats and manifested as a hypersomnolence (a state of profound sleepiness, where patients are hard to be kept awake, often found in statue-like conditions). Other symptoms include post-encephalitic parkinsonism (in which the patient experiences slow movement or severe muscle rigidity), as well as radical psychiatric and behavioral changes. These were also visible in patients that survived and recovered.

With a high mortality rate of about 20-40% and more than 1 million people affected, reports indicate up to 500 000 global deaths, as well as thousands more that suffered permanent medical issues after their recovery.

The strange part of this condition, however, isn’t based only on its effect, but also on the randomness of its appearance. The first cases ever recorded started appearing in 1915-1916, and in 1930-1931, the condition vanished just as sudden as it started, with only exceptional cases being discovered ever since (80 confirmed cases in the last 85 years).

What puzzles medical experts to this day, is what exactly caused it. After all, how can a disease just start manifesting to the scale of a pandemic, and then vanish by itself? There were proposed links to the influenza pandemic from 1918, streptococcus or enterovirus based conditions, that may have damaged the basal ganglia. Today, the most commonly accepted possibility is that the disease was caused by an autoimmune reaction, however, this remains a simple theory, and no clear answer has been revealed to this day, making this bizarre event remembered as one of the strangest medical mysteries ever recorded.

4.      The case of the dancing plague of 1518

The dancing plague of 1518 was not the first event of its kind, but it’s definitely the one that received the most attention, due to a lot of documentation regarding it. As the name suggests, the “plague” was some sort of condition that made the ones affected dance uncontrollably, and while this strange phenomenon was used to be viewed mostly from a historical perspective, medically it quickly starts raising a lot of questions.

The incident happened in Strasbourg, in July 1518, when a woman called Mrs. Troffea stepped into the street and started dancing uncontrollably, almost like something possessed her. In the following period, more and more people joined her, resulting in about 30 in a week and up to 400 in total. These people would then just dance until they collapsed from exhaustion, extreme foot pain, heart attacks and strokes.

The immediate response from the church and medical specialists was to encourage the people to keep on dancing, believing they would stop eventually, however, this created even more harm, with more and more people joining. Originally it was believed that this was a religious manifestation, with the victims being possessed, although doctors did mention rising blood temperature as a probable cause, but it was not accepted.

Fast forward to the 20th century, a new theory claimed that the locals might have eaten bread made from rye infected with fungal disease ergot, which is known to cause convulsions. However, it is strange how their only appearing symptom was their random, unstoppable dance. If the poisoning theory was true, then other toxicity effects would have been visible.

What is interesting is that the latest and most modern theory explained how the whole “epidemic” might just have been mass hysteria. It is commonly known that at that time peasants had to live in a dirty environment, where famine, hunger, disease and poverty were daily issues that the population had to deal with. Some medical experts claim that living in such conditions could create subconscious fears that might one day manifest in bizarre ways (in this case dancing), if triggered by someone first (the original lady’s dance). Then, the whole process becomes a giant chain reaction, giving the illusion of an epidemic. And while this theory still isn’t certified by any means, it is our most solid clue regarding what truly happened during one of the most disturbing documented historical events.

5.      The case of Fatal Familial Insomnia

Fatal Familial Insomnia, or FFI as it’s commonly called, is the name of an extremely dangerous and mysterious disease that continues to baffle medical experts to this day.

On the first hand, FFI is extremely rare, with a rate of appearance of approximately 1-2 cases per 1 million people. On the other hand, despite there being only severely limited documented cases, it was proven that its mortality rate is in fact, 100%, meaning that nobody has survived it in history.

Unlike most degenerative neurological conditions, FFI is not caused by trauma or infections with parasites, but rather genetical issues regarding prions, specifically the PRNP (prion protein) gene, which can suffer an autosomal dominant mutation, that can also be transmitted to children, affecting essentially multiple generations. A non inheritable version of the condition called sporadic fatal insomnia (sFI) also exists, although it is much rarer, and behaves differently.

When it comes to the effects, the disturbing part of the condition can be seen, as abnormal prions form in the thalamus, that destroy nerve cells. Conditions that follow include dementia, hallucinations, high blood pressure and anxiety, as well as muscle spasms. However, the most notable symptom is the classic insomnia that becomes worse and worse, until patients die, after about 7 to 18 months. By this time, patients can reach a point where they cannot sleep anymore at all.

The mysteries, however, that this disease raise are the ones that make the condition so interesting to specialists, as they realize how little is known about it in the first place. First of all, the fact that no treatment was discovered. And this actually has to do with prions. Because prions are non living protein particles, there is no cure for stopping them like in the case of a virus or bacteria. This is why prion related degenerative conditions are the deadliest types of disease in the world. FFI is one of them, but the most well-known one is by far Mad cow’s disease, which also involves prions. The issue here relies on the fact that scientists cannot figure out what is the biological purpose of prion proteins, that are made normally inside the body. The second mystery regarding the disease is how do the people die exactly. Does the lack of sleep finally shuts off the body, or the neurological trauma that affects the brain in parallel? One thing that locks scientists out of a reasonable answer is that the function of sleep, in general, is also pretty mysterious on its own. Thirdly, the fact that sleep medication completely fails and even backfires only makes the condition stranger. Normally, when a patient suffers from insomnia, they can receive special treatments that chemically “shuts off” the brain, putting them to sleep. The fact that this type of medication becomes useless is the proof that the prion deregulation does something even darker: it makes the thalamus unable to generate the sleep response no more, meaning that not even a chemical switch can shut it off. And finally, and probably the most bizarre out of all, is when the disease manifests. It can appear from a very young age, about 20 years old, all the way to 70 years old, but most cases arise between 40 and 50 years of age. Once again, medical experts have no clue to why this might be happening. As bizarre as it seems, it looks like the condition genetically exists in the body from birth, but only manifests at a very mature age, which is again, unexplainable.

In conclusion, fatal familial insomnia continues to remain one of the most notorious conditions in the medical world, as it continues to raise more questions than answers.

Sources:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia

              https://www.medlink.com/articles/fatal-familial-insomnia

              https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482208/

              https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25001-fatal-familial-insomnia

              https://www.britannica.com/event/dancing-plague-of-1518

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518

              https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dancing-plague-of-1518/

              https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2883045/

              https://asm.org/articles/2025/december/encephalitis-lethargica-a-mysterious-neurological

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica

              https://allthatsinteresting.com/tarrare

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrare

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gloria_Ramirez

              https://www.discovermagazine.com/analysis-of-a-toxic-death-14125

              https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9248041/