Could memes cause disease?

Have you ever had a fuck-me moment? This is an instant in your life when the scales suddenly drop from your eyes. Something suddenly makes sense that was previously perplexing. Darwin must have had such a moment when the concept of evolution first crossed his mind. Everything he had observed must suddenly have made sense. After the initial fuck-me moment there follows a period when you think through the flash of lightning that has struck. In a true fuck-me moment the more you think the more it makes sense. For Darwin the thinking phase took rather a long time.

Dr Grumble has almost had one of these episodes. The bolt of lightning struck him this morning. He is now at the evaluation stage and he is not yet sure that it all makes sense.

So what is Dr G on about? How could a meme cause disease? How could this be a bolt of lightning to disturb Dr Grumble's Sunday morning?

First let's consider what a meme is. Dr Grumble was not very familiar with the term until recently. It seems it was coined by Richard Dawkins and it refers to any learned feeling, thought or behaviour. Like genes memes can be transferred from person to person or from groups to groups. Tunes, religion, fashion and habits are examples of memes. The whole idea that memes could cause disease is itself a meme. It's not actually Dr Grumble's idea he picked it up from somebody else (who deserves credit but should remain anonymous unless he wishes to reveal himself).

Memes can propagate. In many ways they are like an infectious agent. How could they operate pathologically? Let's take Islamic fanaticism as an example. Some British Moslems have had their religion perverted and they have taken to suicidal terrorism. These people used not to be out to kill us but now, sadly, they are. The infectious agent has been ideas generated by clerics. They have been infected with a radicalisation meme. Does that make sense?

OK, perhaps suidical terrorism is not a disease but it does have a high mortality which is pretty much like a disease. How could memes cause real disease? Are there any examples? Dr Grumble thinks there may be. When young Edward Grumble had glandular fever he was quite unwell. The Grumble family was bombarded with predictions of prolonged ill health and tiredness from various 'helpful' people. But were these self-fulfilling prophesies? Mrs Grumble told Edward he would get better. No fatigue meme was implanted into his brain. And young Edward did get better and there was no prolonged fatigue. He is now fighting fit.

OK n=1 but that was just to make a point. Throughout history there have been a wide variety of bizarre diseases that doctors have not understood. These diseases may start quite quickly. And they may disappear. They come and go like fashions. Occasionally large groups of people have them all at once. ME epidemics spring to mind. Anything that comes in epidemics one would think has an infectious cause but could the infectious agent be a meme? Could there be an ME meme?

Dr Grumble is still getting his thoughts clear on this one but it seems to make quite a lot of sense. If you can make people kill themselves and others with a meme surely you could make them ill.