3

Germans Are Deathly Afraid Of Drafts

In a telephone survey conducted by Germany's Allensbach Institute, more than a third of those interviewed said that a warm midwinter wind commonly known as the foehn -- pronounced "fern," like the houseplant -- caused noticeable changes in their health, while one in five said it was the meteorological equivalent of a kneecapping. But that's pretty standard stuff. After all, there's a good chance your mom once had you convinced that the common cold was so named because it was caused by actual cold.

bowdenimages/iStock"Well, why do I get colds during the summer sometimes?" "Because you're an abomination."

Odder is the fact that opening a window on a sweltering bus in Germany is likely to earn you irritated shouts of "Es zieht!" and a swift smack with the riding crop we imagine every German carries. Directly translated, that means "It pulls" -- because the draft supposedly pulls the health and well-being straight out of you. So fearful of air currents are some Germans that they blame them for conditions ranging from migraines to insomnia to kreislaufzusammenbruch. No, we didn't kick our laptop down the stairs and into a passing thresher; that monstrous word translates to "circulatory collapse," and while in most places such a condition would get you good and dead, in Germany it gets you a day off work if you're lucky. Because what's a little organ system failure to a people who consume their beer by the liter?

Deklofenak/iStock"This is the only draft we want to deal with."

2

France Is Suffering An Ongoing Epidemic Of "Heavy Legs"

Have you ever had one of those days when your legs simply do not wish to carry your ass to work? Well, so has the entirety of France. They've even coined a special term for the condition: heavy legs syndrome.

skeeze/Pixabay Heavy-feeling legs, in a nation where 80 percent of the diet is wine, cheese, and bread? You don't say ...

Unique to France (aka the place with more pharmacies than any other European country), heavy legs syndrome has no concrete medical definition, probably because it's not recognized as a condition at all anywhere else. Rather, it's vaguely described as an "unpleasant sensation of pain and heaviness" in the lower extremities. It's generally treated with a variety of topical creams, a veritable cornucopia of pain medications, and presumably millions upon millions of dollars in lost productivity.

The thing is, all those French people calling in sick to work because their calves have gone up a weight class likely don't realize that they're contributing to an epidemic of an entirely different variety. You see, assigning a set of symptoms their own "syndrome" could be more damaging than anyone realizes. The symptoms of so-called heavy legs syndrome, for instance, align nicely with real, treatable conditions, such as varicose veins -- which more than half of French women and one third of French men suffer. By apathetically tossing drugs at the symptoms, however, you're never getting to the root cause of said symptoms.

Kajdi Szabolcs/iStock "They pair perfectly with brie and a nice Chardonnay."

1

In India, Homeopathy Is A Legitimate Medical Practice

In 1796, German physician Samuel Hahnemann had an idea. Building upon his principle of "like cures like," he developed an approach to medicine positing that substances which would normally induce negative effects on the human body could, when diluted to such a degree that they were no longer even the substances in question, be used to treat ailments whose symptoms resembled the aforementioned negative effects. (Stomach cramps and convulsions? Here, have a trace amount of arsenic!) He called this newly minted field homeopathy, and it's been causing physicians worldwide to roll their eyes ever since.

wmiami/iStock "Please do not confuse your Google search with my medical degree."

Except in India, where a homeopathy practitioner can hang their fancy Homeopathy Practitioner Certificate on the wall of their honest-to-god medical practice. Indeed, it's the second most popular form of medical treatment in India behind allopathy (better known to most of the world as "non-bullshit medicine"), with around 10 percent of the population putting their trust in flower petals and crossed fingers to cure everything from swine flu to cancer. And they're doing so with the backing of the government -- India is home to hundreds of homeopathic medical colleges and university programs, with state councils training and registering thousands of new practitioners at a growing rate each year.

marilyna/iStock Death rate growth soon to follow ...

More horrifying yet is the fact that the Maharashtra state government, in response to an ongoing shortage of science-based medical practitioners, is all set to promote hundreds of homeopathic placebo peddlers to actual doctors, citing the oft-ignored "good 'nuff" school of medical training. That's sort of like if Florida had a shortage of plumbers, so they handed out plumbing certifications to everyone who'd ever played Super Mario Bros. Either scenario involves disturbing levels of both shit and random mushrooms.

Wes Corwin is a stand-up comedian currently based in Dallas. You can like him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, or if you live in Dallas and prefer analog comedy over digital, check out his weekly show at Noble Rey Brewery on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.

Also check out 6 Mental Illnesses That Only Happen in One Place on Earth and 6 Unexplained Things That Only Happen In A Few Places On Earth.

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