List of fictional diseases
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This article is an attempt to compile a list of fictional diseases—nonexistent, named medical conditions which appear in fiction. The list contains illnesses which have evolved naturally; artificially engineered biological weapons; hereditary diseases; magical diseases; and technology-based diseases. Most items are followed by a brief description.
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Evolved diseases
For the sake of convenience, infectious diseases of unknown origin and diseases created by radiation or drug resistance are included in this section.
- Andromeda - airborne pathogen, unknown organism, extraterrestrial origin, causes fatal blood clotting, Andromeda Strain
- Drafa Plague - Babylon 5
- Dreaming Death - killed characters on the soap opera Guiding Light
- The Drips - a venereal disease that only affects the genetically engineered non-human characters in S. Andrew Swann's Moreau Series
- DR SAM - A drug-resistant staphylococcus strain in Anne Benson's The Plague Tales novels.
- Foaming Sheep Sickness - disease caused by eating green mutton in the Discworld novel Jingo, a parody of Mad Cow Disease.
- Glaubner's disease - Firesign Theatre
- Human Metahuman Vampiric Virus (HMHVV) - blood-borne pathogen, virus, known to produce vampires, wendigoes and other abominations, Shadowrun role playing game
- Martian venereal disease - untreatable infection rare on Earth (except among certain City prostitutes), Transmetropolitan
- Motaba virus (named for the Motaba River) - causes hemorrhagic fever in humans similar to that of Ebola, a later strain was found to be airborne, Outbreak
- Necrotizing fasciitis - An actual disease; however, when it was featured in the movie Cabin Fever, it had a drastically accelerated and amplified effects.
- Rigellian fever - from the "Requiem for Methuselah" episode of Star Trek
- Senga - sexually transmitted disease in But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew A. Fitt
- Solanum - A virus which causes infected humans to become zombies, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks
- Symbalene blood burn - causes the vascular lining of blood vessels to boil away, Star Trek: Enterprise
- Vegan choriomeningitis - contagious pathogen from Vega, usually fatal, from "The Mark of Gideon" episode of Star Trek
- Venereal ergot infection - produces uncontrollable hallucinations and delirium, Transmetropolitan
- Wasteland Herpes - sexual transmitted disease, radiation-mutated form of herpes, prevalent in prostitutes in post-WWIII Nevada, Wasteland computer game
- Zombie contagion - in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, a person could only become a zombie after being bitten by another zombie, showing that whatever caused the dead to rise could only be passed through fluid contact. This makes the epidemic more disease-like in nature than the outbreaks in George A. Romero's original Dead Trilogy, in which any dead body could become reanimated.
Engineered diseases
Most of these were created as weapons; some were not.
- AMPS (Acquired Melanin Production Syndrome) - sexually transmitted, genetically engineered disease that turns white people black, Good News From Outer Space, by John Kessel
- Anthrax Leprosy Pi / Anthrax Leprosy Mu - Two versions of a highly contagious, deadly, incurable disease. Anthrax Leprosy Mu is hinted to be vastly superior to Anthrax Leprosy Pi. Both are created by Dr. Charles Mocenigo, under commission from the United States government, in the Illuminatus! trilogy.
- Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome - a disease that apparently re-activates pseudogenes, resulting in physical "devolution" to earlier phenotypes. Named after Reginald Barclay in whose body it was inadvertently created, Star Trek: The Next Generation
- "The Big Death" - airborne pathogen, virus, biological weapon, notable for its high lethality amongst persons over the age of puberty, Jeremiah
- "Captain Trips" - a flu-based virus, The Stand
- Cordela virus - 24
- Ebola Shiva/Ebola Brahma - an enhanced strain of the Ebola filovirus designed to wipe out the human race except for a handful of environmentally conscious individuals, from Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. Called "Shiva" in the novel and "Brahma" in the game.
- G virus - A mutagenic pathogen which causes the host to become a big, dumb, practically unstoppable killing machine. The purified virus can be injected directly into the heart, or a mutated host can implant a G-embryo into another host. The latter mode of transmission is most successful when the host and the new victim are genetically similar. Resident Evil 2
- JUVE - biological weapon developed by Crake, distributed initially in a dormant form via his BlyssPluss pills, symptoms include necrotizing flesh and extreme hemorrhaging to organs, Oryx and Crake
- Legacy Virus - from Marvel Comics universe, created by Stryfe, generally affects only mutants
- Noocytes - genetically engineered lymphocytes, highly intelligent and capable of altering genetic material, Blood Music
- "The Phage" - disease which destroys the genetic and cellular patterns of the Vidiian race in Star Trek:Voyager
- "The Rage" - blood-borne pathogen, virus, possible biological weapon, causes uncontrollable rage within seconds of exposure, 28 Days Later
- Syphon Filter - an artificial virus described as "the ultimate bioweapon" because it can be genetically programmed to target any ethnicity. Featured in the video game series of the same name.
- T-Virus - virus, causes dementia and cellular necrosis, mutates easily into other strains, which often have mutagenic effects on the host, Resident Evil
- Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS) - airborne pathogen, virus, possible biological weapon, Shadowrun role playing game
- Weasles - "bio-artificed" disease, apparently related to Mustelidae somehow: "We're talking boils that really bite." Mentioned in the Discworld novel Thief of Time
Technological diseases
- Cyberbrain Closed Shell Syndrome - a type of autism caused by cyberbrain implants, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
- Cyberbrain Sclerosis - cyberbrain implant malady resembling multiple sclerosis, eventually fatal, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
- Gray Death - Deus Ex
- Melding Plague - A computer virus that affects nanomachines, causing them to go haywire and creating bizarre amalgalms of flesh and machine Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds
- Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS), a.k.a. "the Black Shakes" - environmental attributed cause, increased seizures to the point of death, Johnny Mnemonic
Magical diseases
- Fairy Flu - causes fairies to lose control of their magical powers, The Fairly Oddparents
- Planets - a rare magical disease on the Discworld, the most obvious symptom of which is small planets orbiting the victim.
- Primary Vocabularyitis - a disease that causes Samantha Stephens to speak in rhyme in the Bewitched episode "Samantha the Bard"
Miscellany
This category includes hereditary diseases, metafictional diseases, “joke” diseases, and anything that doesn’t fit anywhere else.
- Boneitis - fatal, non-contagious, affliction of the bones, Futurama
- Brain cloud - the fake fatal diagnosis given to Joe (Tom Hanks) in the motion picture Joe Versus the Volcano
- Dipsy-doodle-itis - a disease that Fred and Barney made up so they could go to Frantic City, Flintstones
- Entitilitus - "Nobody knows what entitilitus is, but entitilitus kills", Mr. Show
- Homer Simpson Syndrome - Homer Simpson: "Oh, why me?"; genetic condition, causes cerebral fluid to be 1/8" thicker than normal, cushioning the brain like a helmet, perhaps at the cost of some mental faculties, The Simpsons
- Imminent Death Syndrome (IDS) - sufferers are "on the brink of death for 80 to 100 years", Mr. Show
- Jigsaw disease - terminal disease that causes random parts of the body to spontaneously vanish, from the Judge Dredd comics
- Magnimus Obliviophallocytis a.k.a "Little Donny Disease" - hereditary, enlarged genitalia, Upright Citizens Brigade
- Metastatic Human Cancer Virus - causes unusual cancer that can not be killed, but can be removed, and, despite name, can infect animals and even plants, Loop by Koji Suzuki
- Pecanitis - from CatDog, affects dogs who eat pecans; can take effect in a variety of ways. In Dog's case, it causes a large pecan tree to grow out of his head.
- Recalcitrant plebney - invented by Don Martin of Mad Magazine
- Suds - a illness contracted by SpongeBob SquarePants (and presumably other sponges) instead of the common cold. Has many of the same symptoms as a cold, except that when sneezing takes place, soapsuds come out of his pores. Can be cured with the "sponge treatment" (using the sponge for cleaning jobs), SpongeBob SquarePants
- Tumorsyphilisitisosis - a fake fictional disease which causes extra nipples, which look remarkably like pepperoni, to grow and then fall off. Conceived by Peter Griffin as part of a brilliant scheme to get a canceled television program back on the air, Family Guy