When the causes of an illness remain undiagnosed and the therapy turns out to be impossible or ineffective, the disease becomes morally marked and associated with a punishment. A considerable number of patients treat their affliction with disgust and feel a specific type of shame. The reputation of a disease might significantly sharpen the suffering of the patients. The opinions which disfigure the experience of the disease sometimes have fatal consequences by discouraging people from undergoing treatment or postponing its commencement. Tarring and feathering is a form of public humiliation used to enforce unofficial justice or revenge.