Phthisis

Phthisis (THEYE-sis) is a disease caused by long exposure to powerstone radiation. 
==Description==
A large list of symptoms was given in The Thran, but most of those could just have been included by Yawgmoth so he could diagnose healthy enemies with the disease and exile them to the Caves of the Damned. Rotting spots on the body and mental disorders are certainly part of the disease. However, Dyfed confronted Yawgmoth that phthisis was never contagious, as he well knew. Rather, he lied about its infectiousness and used it to quarantine his enemies and promote his friends. He even learned how to infect a healthy body, so that he could control who was stricken and who was healthy.
Yawgmoth did discover a treatment for phthisis, which involved a mixture of copper, silver, gold, and iron powder. These metals reflect mana, which keeps the patient from being radiated by corresponding mana - green for copper, blue for silver, white for gold, and red for iron. When administered the mixture, patients' lesions would immediately shrink and heal, although the effect was only temporary, lasting about a week until the metals were washed out of the system. What Yawgmoth did not tell anyone is that he neglected to include lead in the mixture, meaning patients would still be irradiated by black mana, causing them to turn corrupted over time.J. Robert King, 1999, The Thran, Wizards of the Coast.
==Trivia==
*Phthisis is also an archaic name of the real-world disease tuberculosis. 
*The name was revisited in the "nostalgia" set Time Spiral and used for the black removal card <c>Phthisis</c>.
*Phthisis is presumably similar to real-life radiation poisoning.
==References==
Category:Dominaria
Category:Weatherlight Saga