Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

Small blisters in the mouth, on the palms of the hands, on the soles of the feet. Fever, malaise, difficulty swallowing. What reads like a harmless childhood illness is for the affected child an experience that encompasses the entire body — and for parents often a mixture of worry and helplessness.

Medicine knows the cause: Coxsackieviruses, sometimes enteroviruses. Highly contagious, usually in children under ten years of age. In the vast majority of cases, the illness heals without consequence. But BodySignal asks more deeply: Why this particular child? Why right now? And why does the symptom show itself at precisely these three locations — mouth, hands, feet?