Encephalitis lethargica

The European sleeping sickness ( Syn: ( From ) Economo 's disease, encephalitis lethargica encephalitis and Vienna ) is an inflammation of the brain, lethargy, uncontrolled sleep attacks and a temporary, Parkinson 's disease -like disorder triggers. The disease occurred about 1915-1927 in Europe and was also named after Constantin von Economo, who described it for the first time in 1916.

Between 1917 and 1927 there seems to have been a particular cluster of encephalitis lethargica cases. After that there was no epidemic of occurrence more new cases have since been described in anecdotal cases. Due to the almost simultaneous occurrence of encephalitis lethargica with the Spanish flu suspected Rave Holt and Foege 1982 that these two diseases are connected to each other. However, McCall and colleagues could not detect 2001 influenza RNA in archived tissue samples and do not confirm this assumption it.

Oliver Sacks' book Awakenings are victims of this epidemic around 1920, with which the author met in the late 1960s as a young doctor in neurological care unit of a hospital in the U.S.. The film Awakenings is based on this book.

The author Susanne Schäfer writes in her autobiographical book "Stars, apples and round glass " that they have developed as a result of encephalitis lethargica numerous consequential damages, including Autism, narcolepsy and epilepsy.