Palm Island mystery disease
Palm Island mystery disease noun: a 1979 outbreak of sudden severe gastroenteritis and liver-related illness that affected mainly children on Great Palm Island, Australia. It was initially unexplained, but is now generally linked to contaminated drinking water involving cyanobacterial toxins and/or excessive copper sulfate treatment, which caused acute poisoning symptoms.

Noun
Palm Island mystery disease (uncountable)
- A 1979 outbreak of sudden severe gastroenteritis and liver-related illness that affected mainly children on Great Palm Island, Australia. It was initially unexplained, but is now generally linked to contaminated drinking water involving cyanobacterial toxins and/or excessive copper sulfate treatment, which caused acute poisoning symptoms.
- Synonyms:
- hepatoenteritis
Synonyms of Palm Island mystery disease
Questions about Palm Island mystery disease
- What does Palm Island mystery disease mean?
- Palm Island mystery disease means a 1979 outbreak of sudden severe gastroenteritis and liver-related illness that affected mainly children on Great Palm Island, Australia. It was initially unexplained, but is now generally linked to contaminated drinking water involving cyanobacterial toxins and/or excessive copper sulfate treatment, which caused acute poisoning symptoms.
- What part of speech is Palm Island mystery disease?
- Palm Island mystery disease is a noun.
Words near Palm Island mystery disease in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Palm Island mystery disease (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “Palm Island mystery disease.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/palm_island_mystery_disease. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
