Shake the Disease

The October 6th, 1783 issue of The Onion News-Paper -- available this week and online -- has on it's final page an advertisement for "John Jameson's Miracle Concoction," which is said to provide aid for:

Torpid Innard; Anchorite's Droop; Moth-Bowell; Leadminer's Complaint; Flaccidity of the Tongue; Magnet-Rash; Horse-Shoe-To-The-Head; New-Hampshireman's Quandry; The Feathers; Superfluous Haire; The Drippling Illness; Whoopsy Lung; The Brackets; Gold Fevor; Bewitchment; Thumb Tumefaction; Beard Crickets; Soot-mouth; Milkman's Teat-Finger; Bucket-Mender's Knee; Air-Borne Toxic Eventualities; The Gargling Horrors; The Falling Hollies; The Vapors; Delicacy Spells; Accumulation of Excessive Humors; Astrologicks; Mulish Bladder; Stubborn Coccyx; Irritable Skull; Mistaken Heruistics; Boatswain's Dis-Order; Dog-Stink; Un-Stoppable Tooth Growth

In addition to jokes of anatomy and philosophy and the sheer looniness of applied English, there are Don Delillo and H.P. Lovecraft references in there if you want them. Oh, and by the way: in the Marvel Comics Universe, John Jameson -- son of J. Jonah -- is an lycantropic astronaut known as the Man-Wolf.

At least one person, noticing a tendency in Sarah Palin to slip in and out of her Fargo accent, has diagnosed Intermittent Gunderson Syndrome.

More fake diseases can be found in the Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases.