In 1967, hospitals in Singapore were inundated by hundreds of panicking men. Hundreds of panicking men with their genitals hanging out. That’s right, their genitals. People were literally desperately gripping their dicks, fearing to let go. They held onto their dicks with anything at hand; including strings, clamps, rubber-bands, chopsticks, laundry pins, and even their hands. Imagine yourself as the poor schmuck of a doctor on duty that day, facing down the dreaded disease known as koro.
Koro was not a new thing in 1967. In fact, outbreaks of koro had been noted since as early as the late nineteenth century. The most common area to be struck by the terrible condition was southern China, which suffered significant epidemics in 1948, 1955, and 1966. The primary symptom of koro is shrinking male genitals, which as you can probably imagine, is a rather terrifying thing to have happen, only made worse by the knowledge that once your genitals disappeared into your body you died. As most men could probably agree, dickless and dead is no way to go through this world.
The first case of koro reported in the Singapore outbreak was a sixteen year old boy, brought to the hospital by his parents, desperately tugging on his shrinking wang. The boy had noticed the shrinkage earlier that day, and luckily his parents were of Chinese descent so knew exactly what they were dealing with. Luckily, the doctors knew exactly what to do as well. They gave the boy a shot of chlordiazepoxide and sent him home. Unfortunately, it was too late. Within hours more people started showing up at hospitals with similar symptoms. People began to panic. Rumors began to spread that the disease was being spread by pork tainted by the improper use of a vaccination for swine flu. Pork prices plummeted. The government released a notice stating that neither swine flu nor the vaccination could harm humans, this only made things worse.
After about a week of the pandemic spreading unabated, the head of Singapore’s Ministry of Health decided that he had to do something. In times like this, people needed a leader. Using all of his power and influence, he got permission to make an announcement across all of the country’s TV and radio stations. His message was simple and to the point. If people wanted to stop the spread of koro, they needed to stop panicking, literally, because koro didn’t exist. Now this might come as a bit of a surprise to about half the world’s population, but male genitalia are actually amazingly elastic. They constantly change shape and size dependent upon temperature, activity, and emotion. This constant re-shaping is why so many men are often re-arranging things. Koro is not some terrible disease, it’s simply an overactive imagination, spurred on by panic induced shrinkage.
The koro epidemic in Singapore ended soon after the nationwide tongue lashing by the Minister of Health. However, it was not the last time a koro pandemic would occur. In China, further epidemics occurred in 1974, 1984, and 1987; affecting thousands and not stopping until the government carried out a widespread mental health campaign. Outside of China, it was reported in Thailand in 1976, and in Thailand and India in 1982. The dreaded condition even made its way to West Africa in the late 1990’s, spreading across the region in a series of outbreaks lasting into the early 2000’s. In one instance, five people were lynched by a mob of vigilantes because it was believed the five were purposefully spreading the imaginary disease. The most recent outbreak occurred in India in 2010. Happy peeing.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CarsonConnaughtDrive-Singapore-196009.jpg