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Once thought to have neurofibromatosis, Joseph Merrick (also known as "the elephant man") is now, in retrospect, thought by clinical experts to have had Proteus syndrome. This endocrine disease causes continued and abnormal growth of the bones, muscles, skin, and so on and can become completely debilitating with severe deformities occurring anywhere on the body.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.
If all the neurons in the human body were lined up, they would stretch more than 600 miles.
Warfarin was developed as a consequence of the study of a strange bleeding disorder that suddenly occurred in cattle on the northern prairies of the United States in the early 1900s.
The longest a person has survived after a heart transplant is 24 years.