【Big Think】Koro: A cultural “illness” in China caused men to believe their penis was disappearing

おはようございます。KANOです。今回はこちらの記事から。

Koro: A cultural "illness" in China caused men to believe their penis was disappearing

Traditional Chinese Medicine describes a condition called koro in which the penis can completely retract, resulting in d...

bigthink.com

中国の広東で一時期流行したらしい病気について。
文化的要因かぁ…ありそうだよなぁ。

pathogen

意味　[C] [医] 病原体; 病原菌.

So what caused this curious episode? As it turns out, it was neither virus nor bacteria, but instead a powerful cultural pathogen: belief.

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/koro-penises-disappearing/

koro

意味　a culture-specific syndrome, occurring chiefly in China and southeastern Asia, characterized by anxiety and the fear of retraction of the penis or breasts and labia into the body.

The male residents of Guangdong province had “contracted” koro, defined as “an acute state of panic anxiety, in which the affected male believes or perceives that his penis is shrinking or retracting, and perhaps disappearing.” In rarer cases, the condition also affects females, convincing sufferers that their breasts and labia are shrinking.

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/koro-penises-disappearing/

すごいな、辞書の説明がまんまだ。
「杞憂」発祥の国はさすが年季が違う。

acupuncture

意味　[U]鍼療法, 鍼 （しん） 術.

Known as suo-yang in Chinese, koro was first described as early as 200 BC in the first textbook of Chinese medicine, the Yellow Emperor’s Classic Text of Internal Medicine. It was thought to be caused by imbalance in the life forces Yin and Yang, perhaps driven by “sexual excess,” and cured by procedures like acupuncture.

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/koro-penises-disappearing/

病気はすべて陰陽の乱れって考え方は好き。ウイルス起因の病気よりもかかること多いし。

set off A

意味　A の端緒[きっかけ] となる, （意図せずに）A を引き起こす (trigger)

In reality, koro is neither caused by spirits nor sexual excess nor cured with chopsticks. Penis shrinkage is regularly set off by cold temperatures (as we all learned from Seinfeld) or simple anxiety. Young Chinese men who strongly believe in the folklorish explanation for a retracting phallus can misinterpret this common physiological response as a koro attack.

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/koro-penises-disappearing/

寒いと確かに縮むわなw

sporadically

意味　ときおり, 散発的に.

While koro outbreaks occurred sporadically before the Guangdong event, they have been nearly nonexistent since. For the most part, young Chinese, who are more susceptible to the psychogenic condition, have become far more educated in the past four decades, and tend to live in urban areas where folk beliefs are less prevalent. As it turns out, the ultimate cure for koro is replacing superstition with evidence-based medicine.

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/koro-penises-disappearing/

性教育が行き渡った結果なんだろうな。