Koro: The Psychiatric Epidemic of Bengal

How a State Was Gripped By a Rare Psychiatric Condition

Mr K, a 19-year-old boy, living in a small village in West Bengal went to sleep nervous. He had just heard about a strange illness running riot in neighbouring villages where the penis would shrink till it absorbed into the abdomen and could cause death in some serious cases.

He was nervous about the same happening to himself too. In an effort to calm himself down, he looked down at his penis and, to his horror, noticed that it was shrinking. He could feel tingling sensations all over his body, mostly his back.

He was sweating profusely and finding it tough to breathe. He knew, at this moment, that he had gotten the disease. He was now fighting for his life and each moment counted.

His family, who were already preparing to leave the village in fear of the illness, were downstairs loading their baggage onto a cab. K let out a loud scream to bring attention to his malaise. The family rushed to him and were horrified to know one of their own had been struck.

One of the family members grabbed a rope and tied it to K’s penis to ensure it didn’t shrink further. They had heard this illness went away by pouring cold water on the patient’s head. In a few minutes, K had bucket loads of water being poured on him. He and his family would spend the night fighting this invisible illness.

By the time the sun rose, K felt better. The tingling sensation had subsided and the penis was not shrinking any further. The worst was over.

Or was it?

The Koro Epidemic

K was just one of the many victims of a unique epidemic which broke out in West Bengal, most notably, in 1982.

All 16 districts of the state reported cases of shrinking penises among young men and shrinking breasts in some women. But what is Koro?

Koro is a cultural syndrome where people believe their genitals are shrinking accompanied by intense anxiety and fear. The syndrome has mostly been reported in South Eastern countries of the Philippines, Malaysia and predominantly China but India (West Bengal and Assam) have had its own share of cases.

There have been isolated cases in the western hemisphere but nothing on the scale of what we see in the East.

A cultural syndrome is a collection of psychiatric symptoms which are found in a limited geographical area and aren’t accompanied by a physical ailment i.e there is no physical explanation for the symptoms.

Koro is probably one of the most popular cultural syndromes in the psychiatric world, specifically because of how widespread it is and the terror it can induce in those who have it.

Men in West Bengal taking a dip in a lake to cure Koro

Koro, Epidemic and Bengal

As per a report from 2011, there have been five breakouts of Koro in the state since India’s independence. The most serious one of those was in 1982. There was another in 1995 but it was only limited to 9 cases. The most recent one occurred in 2011 when 19 mill workers reported their penis shrinking into their bodies within the span of a few days.

It would be accurate to call the illness a social contagion. Almost every case that is reported has a precedent of ‘hearing’ or ‘reading’ about the illness from a trusted source, or by overhearing a chat on the train/bus. That begs the question, where did the first case come from?

The 1982 outbreak is believed to have originated when a man’s dead body was found floating in a lake. The body did not have a penis. It was as if it had shrunken into the man’s abdomen. This created fear in the people that there is a disease going around which makes the penis shrink before killing the victim.

And from that, it spread to every district of the state. Villages were deserted and the government had to make public announcements to ensure civilians that Koro (or ‘jhinjhini’ as it was called locally) could be treated.

There was even a point where government workers carried rulers to prove that no penises were shrinking anywhere.

Why Does it Occur?

What makes people so susceptible to a fear of shrinking genitalia? Scientists have not been able to find a fitting answer yet. Here is what we do know though:

Koro was more common in people who had had extramarital affairs. Could psychological guilt precipitate Koro?

Koro was significantly more common in men who had pre-existing psychiatric conditions or extreme stressors in life. Maybe it is a way of the mind forcing the body to get some help.

Koro was prevalent irrespective of class or education status. While the majority of the patients came from villages, psychiatrists practising in major cities of the state also reported having educated patients of Koro.

We still don’t know what makes one susceptible to Koro but it is interesting to note that ever since globalization brought global cultures closer to each other, the disorder has been reported in far-off lands including Canada and the US.

The Question of Reality

Is Koro a real disease? If our brain convinces us of something which is not physically happening, is it really a problem? It is easy to brush the syndrome off as a purely imaginary illness but that does not mean the horror and fear its patients feel is not real.

To a person looking from the outside at this scenario, the idea of the penis shrinking into the body may seem humourous at best but the people who have the misfortune of experiencing this terror would like to disagree.

That’s the thing about psychology as a science, isn’t it? We cannot even know for sure how to separate the real and imaginary.

As Dumbledore said, just because it is in your head does not mean it’s not real.

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And that is it for this week! It’s August already and I am already close to 600 subs on this newsletter.

Hope I can make it to 1000 by the first year anniversary of this place.

What would you like to read more about in this newsletter? I am going to explore more cultural syndromes in the future. Maybe it can be a section of its own?

You can let me know your thoughts in the comments or by replying to this email. :)

Until next time,

Arjun

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