Cornu Cutaneum

An excerpt from ‘The Hypochondriac’s Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have’

In which you grow a horn, not like a goat, but more like a rhinoceros.

Symptoms

• itching
• tenderness
• skin discoloration
• skin growth
• warts
• a horn

Diagnosis

Doesn’t it always happen at the worst time? Your big job interview. The crucial first date with that cute girl from the gym. That indictment hearing for massive corporate fraud. You think you’ve got everything under control: the right suit, reservations at a trendy Thai restaurant, falsified expense accounts. Then you look in the mirror on the big day and — boom — you’ve grown a horn on your face.

Cornu cutaneum (kor’-nu ku-ta’-ne-um) always seems to know the most embarrassing times to show up, and since horns can sometimes grow to several inches in length, they’re pretty hard to cover up. You can try to explain that it’s just a hard, dense, pointy overgrowth of keratin (the same material found in your hair and nails), probably the result of a minor skin tumor from being in the sun too long, but what does it matter? A horn is a horn.

Prognosis

While you can grow a horn anywhere on your body, they tend to grow on your face and hands, areas that are more often exposed to the sun’s radiation. The tumors that cause these horns are usually benign, but not always. So, while the horn is not technically a health risk, it may speak of a bigger problem.

Treatment

The horn is technically dead material, so it can be easily shaved off with a sterile razor blade. However, the cause of the horn will have to be dealt with. Depending on the type of tumor at the base of the horn, this may include such treatments as surgery, radiation therapy, or chemotherapy.

Of Note…

Your horn is not a true horn. The horns of most horned animals, such as a goat or cow, grow directly from the skull. Your horn is more similar to that of a rhinoceros, whose horn is also hardened keratin growing from the skin. So, if any “comedians” see your horn and start calling you Goat Boy, you can quip back, “Hey, that’s Rhino Boy to you!”

The Hypochondriac’s Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have, by Dennis DiClaudio, is available to infect your bookshelf now.