Can skin turn green like in Wicked? Chlorosis, a ‘lost disease’

Something “bad” comes this way.

In the wildly popular musical, due out this week, Elphaba – who later becomes the Wicked Witch of the West – returns to Shiz University with glowing green skin, the result of her mother drinking an elixir suspected during pregnancy.

But here in the real world outside of Oz, there IS evidence of a non-magical condition that caused young women’s skin to take on a green hue.

According to the National Library of Medicine, chlorosis, a type of hypochromic anemia, was often seen in inactive girls and young women in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Hypochromia occurs when the red blood cells are paler than normal. It is the result of insufficient hemoglobin, the pigment that carries oxygen in the blood.

Also called “green disease,” chlorosis was characterized by skin turning a yellow-green hue, as well as fatigue, shortness of breath, missed periods, decreased appetite, a bluish discharge on the sclera or whites of the eyes, and taste foods. sour like pickles.

According to Time magazine, chlorosis bears a striking resemblance to “AAA disease,” a condition suffered by the ancient Egyptians and immortalized in hieroglyphs.

Because of the young population that was most commonly affected, doctors in the Middle Ages called it chlorosis morbus virgineus, or the disease of the virgin.

Doubling down on virginity, William Shakespeare invoked the “green sickness” to describe a chaste Juliet in his play Romeo and Juliet, suggesting that the condition was caused by prolonged virginity and that sanctioned sexual experience was the only anecdote.

Chlorosis was also a popular subject for portrait painters, as the signature green hue has long been associated with nature, wealth, youth, inexperience and envy.

The condition is believed to be caused by iron deficiency and, in addition to sex under the banner of marriage, was usually treated with iron supplements.

Iron deficiency continues to plague young women. A 2023 JAMA study found that nearly four in 10 teenage girls and young women in the U.S. are iron deficient, which can lead to low energy and brain fog.

In 1903, a physician wrote that chlorosis “usually [hearlds] some disturbances of menstrual function, but mainly characterized by the lack of hemoglobin in the blood.

He noted that it was not usually seen in girls in early childhood, nor in women over the age of 30, and was more common at the onset of puberty.

“Sedentary occupation, indoor life, improper diet, excessive physical and mental activity, emotional or mental disturbances are all causes in most cases of chlorosis,” he said, calling it “extremely frequent in girls.” who have premature menstruation”.

After World War I, the incidence of chlorosis declined, thought to be due to changes in diet and a better understanding of conditions such as anemia.

In 1936, Professor Willis Marion Fowler of the University of Iowa published an obituary of the disease in the Annals of Medical History.

“The reasons for the disappearance of chlorosis remain in the dark, and as it disappears, the explanation of its etiology becomes more and more difficult,” he reported at the time.

Many researchers believe that the disease was not a single disease, but a name applied to two distinct conditions, the hypochromic anemia described above, and “chloro-anorexia,” a psychological condition related to anorexia nervosa that flourished during the nineteenth century and it was also known as “virgin disease” or “febris amatoria”, the fever of love.

In this case, the green may have been less literal and more metaphorical, an allusion to innocence rather than a physical descriptor.