Bizarre Morgellons remains a mystery

The syndrome is being referred to as Morgellons. The name appears in a 1674 essay that describes an outbreak of “harsh hairs…unquiet symptoms…coughs and convulsions” among French children, but whether the moniker refers to the same disease is not known. Mary Leitao, a biologist in a town near Pittsburgh, found the term in a 1935 medical journal article when she was looking for an explanation for an eruption on her 2-year-old son’s lip.