Ondine's Curse
The tale is the basis for "Ondine's Curse," the historical name for Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome (CCHS), a severe form of sleep apnea. CCHS causes patients to lose autonomic control of breathing, resulting in the need to consciously initiate every breath. If untreated, patients with CCHS will die—like Ondine's unfaithful spouse—if they fall asleep and can therefore no longer consciously breathe.
Read more about this topic: Undine (alchemy)
Famous quotes containing the word curse:
“Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)