History Main / DiseaseByAnyOtherName

* ''Manga/IGotMyWishAndReincarnatedAsTheVillainessLastBoss'': While it's explicitly stated that in her past life, Elizabeth was very frail and sickly, there's no discussion as to what caused it. The fact that she solely mentioned symptoms associated with the heart before and after her reincarnation[[note]]Her heart might stop when excited, she needed to use ''conscious'' effort to control her heart rate otherwise she'd have a "rough time", and if she didn't move slowly and steadily, she'd have palpitations and/or shortness of breath[[/note]] indicates her past-life health problems mainly arises from a congenital heart defect.

* ''Literature/AlCaponeDoesMyShirts'': Natalie has severe, minimally verbal autism. It's 1935. When the new neighborhood kids ask Natalie's brother Moose if she's "retarded", and he's angered by this, but he can't really refute it. Given the time, that may well be her literal diagnosis. Natalie ends up working with a teacher, Mrs. Kelly, who says she's not supposed to count, rock, play with her buttons, etc, which in modern parlance would be called "suppressing stimming" and is frowned upon. On the other hand, Mrs. Kelly also advises the family to bring Natalie along on errands, bring her out into the community so she's not isolated at home, which is reasonably in keeping with modern advice.

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** Both Isabella of Castile and [[UsefulNotes/MaryTudor Mary I]] of England are thought to have died from ovarian cancer.

** UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant is believed to have had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Besides certain passages of his memoir hinting towards symptoms, Grant was also reported to uncontrollably weep before every battle during the Civil War, after which he would appear emotionless and cold, which indicates dissociation.

** The issues King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII’s wives had with having children (as well as his own later mental and physical health problems) are thought to be from him having a rare blood type, Kell positive. If a Kell-positive man gets a negative blood type woman pregnant, the first pregnancy is normal but the woman will develop antigens to attack the fetus with each successive pregnancy, causing stillbirths or miscarriages. He is believed to have caused at least eleven pregnancies with only four of them producing healthy babies. All but one of them, Mary I, was a firstborn child but the theory is that she had a positive blood type which protected her. His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had six miscarriages. A British team of researchers have found issues with bearing children after a first pregnancy to run in males on his mother’s side of the family to further support this theory. The health problems he faced in later life may be viewed as being from [=McLeod=] syndrome that runs in Kell-positive men.

** The issues King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII’s wives had with having children (as well as his own later mental and physical health problems) are thought to be from him having a rare blood type, Kell positive. If a Kell-positive man gets a negative blood type woman pregnant, the first pregnancy is normal but the woman will develop antigens to attack the fetus with each successive pregnancy, causing stillbirths or miscarriages. He’s thought to have caused at least eleven pregnancies, which resulted in only four full-term pregnancies. His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had six miscarriages. A British team of researchers have found issues with bearing children after a first pregnancy to run in males on their mother’s side of the family to further support this theory. The health problems he faced in later life may be viewed as being from [=McLeod=] syndrome that runs in Kell-positive men.

** The CrapsackWorld of the books is filled with characters who show signs of being [[TheSociopath sociopaths]] or psychopaths, the most notable being [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Cersei Lannister]], [[TheCaligula Joffrey Baratheon]], [[BastardBastard Ramsay Bolton]], and [[AxCrazy Gregor Clegane]], but their condition either goes unacknowledged or is simply lumped into the catch-all of "madness". They have no empathy or remorse nor can they even refrain themselves from inflicting danger when PragmaticVillainy would serve their own interest better (to the frustration of some of their allies who are more pragmatic). Joffrey even [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals tortured animals to death as a child]], which is common among serial killers, while Cersei is implied to have thrown her best friend down a well and watched her die when they were little girls for having designs on Jaime and/or to keep the prophecy they received from Maggy the Frog secret.

** ''Literature/PaladinOfSouls'': Ista sees the youngest child of her ArchNemesis and describes her as having the characteristics of "those children born to a woman late in life"--very clearly talking about Down Syndrome.
** ''Literature/TheCurseOfChalion'': A physician enthusiastically tells a horrified Cazaril that his tumor could have grown teeth or hair, ie a teratoma. He attributes it to [[BodyHorror a demon attempting to grow a body and escape into the material world]].
** ''Literature/TheHallowedHunt'': After a wolf-spirit sends the hero into a kind of metaphysical seizure, Hallana — a sorceress/physician acolyte — comments, "I have seen the falling sickness, and that was not it."

* In ''Series/{{Bridgerton}},'' Edmund Bridgerton dies very suddenly of a bee-sting in the backstory, and his wife and children can't make sense of it. It's clear to modern viewers that he suffered a severe allergic reaction--he develops a huge rash at the site of the sting, and he has so much trouble breathing that he collapses and dies in minutes. As the series is set in the early 1800s, real life would take about a hundred more years for people to properly understand what anaphylaxis is.
* ''{{Series/The Chosen|TVSeries}}'': Matthew is very good with numbers and was described as being a very intelligent child, but has trouble with social cues to the point of being ostracized. This leads to him [[ThenLetMeBeEvil becoming a tax collector]]. Dallas Jenkins, the creator/director, [[WordOfGod has confirmed that]] this version of Matthew has Asperger's, but this is never explicitly said in-universe because of the time period.
* In ''Series/RoyalPains'' the genetic disorder Hank's benefactor Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz has is likely Huntington's disease. Due to Boris's intense need for privacy and the kind of research he funds, upon his comments to a near-perfect physical and reaction to an early warning sign, Hank realizes something's wrong. After learning of Boris's family history of dying at a certain age, Hank's able to confront him over his condition. Boris shares how his father completely lost motor control, mental capacity, and before long, died. He reveals to Hank the reason he wanted him to stay at Shadow Pond was not to cure him but to have someone who'd stay by his side as it progressed, treating the crippling symptoms and dementia until his inevitable death.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In one episode, Data is damaged and loses his memories while recovering a piece of a Starfleet probe that had crashed on a medieval-style RubberForeheadAlien World. Data, with no way of knowing the piece of the probe he had with him was radioactive, has no problem letting the local blacksmith start making trinkets and jewelry out of that odd new metal. Soon the entire village is sick (as radioactive particles have seeped into the water table from smithing) and, predictably, the villagers blame the strange newcomer for their problems.

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* In ''Series/{{Bridgerton}},'' Edmund Bridgerton dies very suddenly of a bee-sting in the backstory, and his wife and children can't make sense of it. It's clear to modern viewers that he suffered a severe allergic reaction--he develops a huge rash at the site of the sting, and he has so much trouble breathing that he collapses and dies in minutes. As the series is set in the early 1800s, real life would take about a hundred more years for people to properly understand what anaphylaxis is.

* TheFairFolk of Celtic/European society are widely known for their BlueAndOrangeMorality, [[CannotTellALie difficulty telling lies]], and sometimes a LackOfEmpathy — so both they and the kidnapped, cursed, or [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe illicit]] part-human children of the ChangelingTale frequently show traits that modern doctors recognize as autism. Unfortunately, with the Fair Folk being notoriously feared, ancient folks extended that fear to their children--a widely known method of "breaking the curse" was to [[BeatTheCurseOutOfHim beat or]] [[OffingTheOffspring KILL]] the "changeling." It should be mentioned that this was not universal, though; in other times and places, changelings were always treated well, to not risk incurring the wrath of the Fair Folk for mistreating one of their children.
** Fairy changelings also showed a number of physical disabilities or mental disorders, so it seems that "changelings" were an umbrella group of [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer "people who didn't fit in with society."]]

* In ''Adjusting'' (sequel to the ''Film/TheAvengers2012''/''Film/{{Chronicle}}'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheNewRecruit''), it's implied that Matt has PTSD as a result of his fight with Andrew in Seattle.

** Stannis Baratheon's obsession with rules and general ineptitude in social bonding (especially in contrast to his two charismatic brothers) has been interpreted by readers as being somewhere in the autistic spectrum.

* Averted in ''Fanfic/TheDragonAndTheButterfly''. Despite the Vikings being from early Scandinavia and the Encanto existing in the late 19th-early 20th century, both Julieta and [[HiddenDepths Tuffnut]] can identify blunt abdomninal trauma from the symptoms Hiccup shows.

* In ''Fanfic/ShardsOfAMemory'', Leo gets sick for at least a week with an unnamed illness. His symptoms are described as having a high fever, coughing, raspy breathing, muscle weakness, etc. The symptoms indicate pneumonia.

** Sweets, Yezzan's favorite slave, is intersex.
** Maelys the Monstrous, the last Blackfire pretender, had a parasitic twin in the form of a smaller, secondary head sticking out of his neck. Unrealistically, the people of [=ASOIAF=] were aware that this was caused by Maelys absorbing his twin ''in utero'' and considered him an involuntary [[SiblingMurder kinslayer]].

* In ''Fanfic/TheWritingOnTheWall'', Daring Do leads an expedition into an ancient tomb bearing a curse and a warning from an unknown civilization of millennia past, which is summarily dismissed. As the diggers delve into the inner chambers, many begin falling ill with an unnamed wasting illness of unknown origin. However an astute reader would recognize it instantly as [[spoiler:radiation sickness]], implying that the "tomb" is very likely [[spoiler:the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, finally opened long after humanity has gone extinct]], and the characters have unknowingly done ''everything wrong'' in trying to contain it.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'': When the narrator describes the Beast's mental state, he mentions that he "fell into despair and lost all hope", which fits the modern day description of clinical depression (which in this time period would be called melancholia). The Beast's behaviour early on in the film is ''very'' similar to how many men with depression act, and WordOfGod stating that he is slowly losing his mind, supports the idea that the Beast is suffering from depression as a result of his curse.

** The CrapsackWorld of the books is filled with characters who show signs of being [[TheSociopath sociopaths]] or psychopaths, the most notable being Cersei Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsay Bolton and Gregor Clegane, but their condition either goes unacknowledged or is simply lumped into the catch-all of "madness". They have no empathy or remorse nor can they even refrain themselves from inflicting danger when PragmaticVillainy would serve their own interest better (to the frustration of some of their allies who are more pragmatic). Joffrey even tortured animals to death as a child, which is common among serial killers, while Cersei is implied to have thrown her best friend down a well and watched her die when they were little girls for having designs on Jaime and/or to keep the prophecy they received from Maggy the Frog secret.

* ''Literature/TheLongShips'': Styrbjörn is mentioned to be brave to the point of recklessness, and to drive his own men to despair with his complete disregard for the opinions of both men and supernatural beings, but also periodically afflicted by "the curse of the Uppsala kings", which manifests as periods of deep melancholy, where he shuts himself away. In the setting, this is treated as a personal quirk, potentially worrying but ultimately nothing to really worry about. The modern reader will quickly and easily identify it as untreated bipolar disorder.

* Similarly, those suffering the "falling/sleeping sickness" are widely recognized as having either narcolepsy or epilepsy, and since so many cultures in differing regions both recognized it and held a strong belief that [[FaintingSeer such people had oracular powers]], it's a puzzle for scholars.

* In ''Series/RoyalPains'' the genetic disorder Hank's benefactor Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz has is likely Huntington's disease. Due to Boris's intense need for privacy and the kind of research he funds, upon his comments to a near-perfect physical and reaction to an early warning sign, Hank realizes something's wrong. After learning of Boris's family history of dying at a certain age, Hank's able to confront him over his condition. Boris shares how his father completely lost motor control, mental capacity, and before long, dying. He reveals to Hank the reason he wanted him to stay at Shadow Pond was not to cure him but to have someone who'd stay by his side as it progressed, treating the crippling symptoms and dementia until his inevitable death.

Differs from VictorianNovelDisease in that consumption/tuberculosis was a known disease at the time, it just got seriously cleaned up for that trope. Compare TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed, which is known in-universe but not spoken of by name because it's seen as shameful, and DiagnosedByTheAudience, when there's clearly ''something'' [[note]]mentally[[/note]] wrong, but since the symptoms are determined by the plot, there's not enough information for anyone in- or out-of-universe to figure it out.

** Stannis Baratheon's obsession with rules and general ineptitude in social bonding (especially in contrast to his two charismatic brothers) has been interpreted by readers as being somewhere in the Autistic spectrum.

Differs from VictorianNovelDisease in that consumption/tuberculosis was a known disease at the time, it just got seriously cleaned up for that trope. Compare TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed, which is known in-universe but not spoken of by name because it's seen as shameful, and AmbiguousDisorder, when there's clearly ''something'' [[note]]mentally[[/note]] wrong, but since the symptoms are determined by the plot, there's not enough information for anyone in- or out-of-universe to figure it out.