Are Wi-Fi headaches a new and troubling medical scourge, or an imaginary epidemic triggered by the rise of a novel technology? Scientifically, the jury is out. Either way, the Wi-Fi headache can take its place in a long lineage of ailments that reliably erupt alongside new inventions, from the potter’s wheel to video games.
Some of these illnesses were no joke: “Telegrapher’s cramp,” for instance, was almost surely a form of repetitive strain injury. But there are plenty of other illnesses that now sound bizarre, even laughable, to those of us who ride elevators, cars, and bicycles on a daily basis with no ill effects. A quick tour through these long-vanished ailments is a gentle reminder that whatever problems technology causes, sometimes a disease says as much about our anxieties as it does about our gadgets.
BICYCLE FACE
In the 1890s, America went bicycle crazy. Mass production combined with technical innovations — equal-size wheels, brakes, rubber inflatable tires — made two-wheelers both the “rich man’s recreation” and the “poor man’s horse.”
The boom also saw an explosion in bicycle-specific diagnoses. Doctors of the time reported “bicycle stoop” and “bicycle hernia,” as well as a syndrome called “bicycle heart,” caused by too-rapid acceleration. “Cyclist’s sore throat” came from ingested dust.
Oddest of all was “bicycle face” — “an expression either anxious, irritable, or at best stony.” The description came from one Dr. A. Shadwell, who coined the term in popular periodicals like the National Review. “Nearly all [cyclists] have it ,” Shadwell claimed in Medical Age, since it results from the “severe nervous strain” of balancing on two wheels. He wondered, “Did ever [a] pastime wear a mien so sombre?”
Not all doctors agreed. Writing in the American Medico-Surgical Bulletin in 1895, one physician speculated that “bicycle face” might be nothing more than “a variety of horse-face or locomotive-face.” A different writer in the same publication joked that too much discussion on the matter might give rise to another illness: “bicycle-face face.”
ELEVATOR SICKNESS
