within 2 weeks. mass koro epidemic was reported in the state of west bengal, india from july to december of 2010, in the districts near southern part of india-bangladesh border, affecting hundreds of people. it is called disco rog (bengali: ডিস্কো রোগ) meaning weird disease or jhinjhinani rog (bengali: ঝিনঝিনানি রোগ) meaning tingling disease, in that region. even locals created some folk managements for this condition like partly submerging the patient in pond and pulling and holding her nipples or his genital. it is reported and published in many newspapers like anandabazar patrika at that time. africa in the 1970s and early 1980s, newspapers reported incidents of genital shrinking in western nigeria. since late 1996, a small-scale epidemic of genital shrinking was reported in west african nations. affected individuals in the african outbreaks often interpreted the experience as genital theft, accusing someone with whom they had contact of "stealing" the organ and the spiritual essence, causing impotence. the perceived motive for theft was associated with local occult belief, the witchcraft of juju, to feed the spiritual agency or to hold the genital for ransom. social representations about juju constitute consensual realities that propose both a means and motivation for genital-shrinking experience. the epidemic began in nigeria and cameroon, and spread to ghana, ivory coast and senegal by 1997. cases were reported in cotonou, benin where mobs attacked individuals accused of the penis theft and authorities ordered security forces to curb the violence, following the deaths of five people by vigilantes. later reports of outbreak suggest a spread beyond west africa, including the coverage of episodes in khartoum, sudan in september 2003; banjul, gambia in october 2003; and kinshasa, dr congo in 2008. comparing west african genital-shrinking epidemics with koro in southeast asia, the latter has symptoms centered on genital retraction (instead of shrinkage) and fear of death (which is absent in african cases). a study analyzing the west african epidemics from 1997 to 2003 concluded that rather than psychopathology, the episodes were product of normal psychological functioning in undisturbed individuals, who were influenced by the local cultural models or social representations. us and europe in the late middle ages in europe, it was believed that men could lose their penises through magical attacks by witches. the malleus maleficarum, a fifteenth-century european manual for witchcraft investigations, relates stories of men claiming that their genitals had disappeared, being "hidden by the devil … so that they can be neither seen nor felt." they were said to have reappeared after the men had appeased the witches responsible. witches were said to store the removed genitals in birds' nests or in boxes, where "they move themselves like living members and eat oats and corn". at least three publications of the 1880s, from us, russia and england, reported genital retraction pathology, without using the malay or chinese term. koro epidemics in china were first noticed in a french report in 1908 and descriptions of koro entered clinical books of western medicine in 1936. in the 1950s, koro is noted in nosological and diagnostic psychiatry. society and culture chinese cultural beliefs most of the ancient literature concerning koro was related to chinese ethnic groups. for example, koro (in its chinese term of shuk yang, shook yong or suo yang (simplified chinese: 缩阳; traditional chinese: 縮陽)) is documented in the old medical book new collection of remedies of value (simplified chinese: 验方新篇; traditional chinese: 驗方新篇) which was published in qing dynasty. the book described the condition as "yin type of cold qi invasion" (simplified chinese: 阴症伤寒; traditional chinese: 陰症傷寒) which involved a sudden seizure during sexual intercourse with the penis retracting into the abdomen. it asserts that the patient will die if not treated with "heaty" drugs in time. factors of cultural expectation in the genesis of koro can be built upon ideas of sex physiology in the traditional chinese medicine, with free play of imagination which links fatality with genital retraction. in the ancient chinese medical book zhong zang jing (simplified chinese: 中藏经; traditional chinese: 中藏經), retraction of the penis with distension of the abdomen was described as a certain sign of death. the yin and yang theory proposes that an unbalanced loss of the yang humour produces genital shrinkage. in taoism and traditional chinese medicine, frequent ejaculation is regarded as detrimental to health, as semen is considered to be related to a man's vital energy, and hence excessive depletion of semen may lead to illness or death. some authors believe that the idea of death caused by the semen depletion resembles the idea of death caused by genital disappearance, although such linkage between koro and taoism, which influences chinese medicine to some degree, is only speculative. the popularity of chinese folklore also plays a role. the novel about ghost stories strange stories from a chinese studio describes a fox spirit which can make people weak physically and sexually and shrink their tissues. belief in koro being caused by the fox ghost among the southern chinese has been reported. etymology and geographical background the earliest western reference to the term koro is found in b.f. matthes' dictionary of buginese language (1874) of south sulawesi, indonesia. the name could be derived from a river, its surrounding valley, and a local tribe of the same name which is located at northwestern sector of sulawesi, indonesia. the word is also used in makassarese language, meaning "to shrink"; the full expression is garring koro. koro may also be derived from malay term kura which means "head of turtle" or keruk which means "to shrink". the term shuk yang (缩阳), adapted from chinese, means "the shrinkage of penis". the term koro is also known as rok loo (genital shrinkage disease) in thailand, jinjinnia bemar in assam, india, and lanuk e laso by the bogoba tribe in philippines.