Somewhere in Nebraska, a fifty-year-old nuclear early warning system detects the joke sailing over Tzetze's head.
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.So those things like Tv Tropes, but you aren't trapped all day...
Okay, I need help with a scientific name for a birth defect in which body parts are detached and hover. Visual aid, sorry for the crappy mouse drawing.
◊ They're known colloquially as "medicine babies" or "cough syrup babies" because of the frequency of the condition among the children of people who worked at the Medicine Factory. (yep, just the Medicine Factory, it's that kind of book) It can be as minor as a single finger or as severe as your entire body being strung out like deli slices. Blood (usually) circulates by teleporting from one section to the other, and scientists and magicians (who sometimes overlap, no Magic Versus Science here) use tissue from these sections to make teleporters. On the odd occasion that blood doesn't circulate, the baby either has to lose whatever parts are detached, have tubes inserted between their parts or have the bits in between treated with a teleportation spell ointment. (the effect is temporary, so this is usually just done to preserve the sections before tube installation surgery)
There are two variations and two sub-variations of the defect.
- The sections are where they would be if they weren't detached, and anything in between the two sections doesn't exist. Example: The first and second knuckles of the index figure are hovering apart from the hand. The third knuckle isn't there. This is especially baffling and sometimes unsettling when someone is missing, say, the places vital organs should be, or their eyes. (the body still operates as if the organs were there, and eyeless sufferers can generally still see, although it's more of a "metaphysical" sight)
- The sections are complete and are further from the body than they would be if they weren't detached. Example: The entire index finger, right down to where it would attach to the hand is floating away from the hand as if it's just been cut off and held apart.
The two sub-variations are more of a sliding scale of how "set" the sections are. On one end of the scale, they can float a great distance away from the anchor and still be functional, which is immensely useful but incredibly rare. On the other end of the scale, they can't move away at all. They may as well be attached to the anchor with pieces of invisible material. This is the most common case.
Sometimes the sections are sealed over with flesh, sometimes with a forcefield, and sometimes they're like open wounds. (in which case the subject will probably wrap gauze around the ends)
As an additional note, the medicine in this universe is sort of "if we had never abandoned all that pseudoscience stuff like the four humors and it actually works and has become more advanced"
edited 12th Oct '09 11:43:57 PM by Made of Meat
...that's deranged. I like it.
Uh, scientific names... er... well, you could always go the faux Latin route, with something like membri noncognatus or corpus disiunctis, but there's also what seems to happen a lot with real-world congenital defects and you just name it after whoever figured out it was happening. Like Albion syndrome or Hermann's syndrome or some other made up name like that.
(Sorry, I'm addicted to the ending stingers from MST 3 K.)
Boy playing with toy monkey, wearing gag glasses and clapping the toy's cymbals: Rock and roll Martian! Rock and roll Martian!
edited 13th Oct '09 5:23:40 AM by Ajardoor
Man you people are weird.
INT is knowing a tomato is a fruit. WIS is knowing it doesn't belong in a fruit salad. CHA is convincing people that it does.

It... actually started playing in my head...
Now, I wonder, Photoshop, spraypaint, coincidence, sauce, or something else?
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.