Sleeping sickness is another medical mystery.

After the First World War, in 1915, humanity faced a new disaster-an outbreak of the disease, unknown to doctors of those times. At first it was recorded under Verdun, and in 1916 − in Austria. The epidemic has not spared the US and Western Europe. Its sudden decline began in 1927.

For 10 years to study the disease had many experts. Doctors from different countries tried to find a way to get rid of it. According to the conducted calculations, a little more than 10 years, the number of infected people reached one million.
The people who caught the disease became living statues: the survivors never spoke and did not move, they could not even Express emotions.

A strange disease called "sleepy". It had another name − lethargic encephalitis. A little later came the term "encephalitis Economo", given in honor of the Austrian psychologist, who made the first description of the disease in 1917. His name was Konstantin von Economo. He created a treatise detailing the symptoms and course of lethargic encephalitis.

Symptomatology

When soldiers complained of specific symptoms began to address the Parisian doctors, their condition was associated with the action of mustard gas or mustard gas used during the fighting. But later it turned out that the theory voiced by doctors was wrong.

At first, the patient suffers from headaches, constant desire to sleep, weakness. Everything looks like an ordinary cold, because a person is not in a hurry to the doctor, losing precious time. When the diagnosis appeared, the brain was damaged. Some patients have abnormal eye movement, psychosis, tremor of the limbs.

Some patients fall into prolonged sleep, which can last a few days or never end. A person who has slept for a long time wakes up, but his mind remains blurred for some time.

The purpose of sleep sickness is the human brain. Since she walked the earth at the same time with the Spanish flu, which took fifty times more lives, little is known about sleepy illness.

Only a third of people affected by sleepy illness were cured completely. She did not spare anyone, but more often affected young people whose age was within 15-35 years.

Sleeping

The scientist believed that the man who had a tumor of the hypothalamus, is doomed to death. When the epidemic has passed, doctors have expressed the opinion that it will never return, but in 1993 B. Howls infected it. The process of recovery was long and took several years.

During additional studies, it was found that people with sleepy illness suffer from sore throat, which is characteristic of streptococcal infection. The bacterium causes a specific immune response and affects the brain.

However, the version about a rare form of Streptococcus has not been confirmed. Who provokes the emergence and development of lethargic encephalitis, is still a mystery.

It is believed that the human carries the pathogen. Children are the most sensitive to it. The virus hides in the nasopharynx, or rather its mucus and saliva. He is not stable, and once in the environment, quickly dies.

The research is still ongoing, but the sleeping sickness is still another medical mystery.