1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,920 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,320 Speaker 1: Heart Radio hi um Eve's Welcome to This Day in 3 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:10,159 Speaker 1: History Class, a show that reveals a little bit more 4 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:26,920 Speaker 1: about history day by day. Today is April. The day 5 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:32,239 Speaker 1: was April seventeen, nineteen seventeen. After seeing many patients with 6 00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:37,879 Speaker 1: varying symptoms including lethargy and odd eye movements, Romanian Austrian 7 00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:42,760 Speaker 1: psychiatrists Constantine von Economo announced the probable spread of a 8 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:46,280 Speaker 1: viral disease at a meeting of the Vienna Society for 9 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:51,240 Speaker 1: Psychiatry and Neurology. The disease, which was spreading all over 10 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:56,760 Speaker 1: the world, became known as encephalitis lethargica or epidemic encephalitis. 11 00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:00,760 Speaker 1: The so called sleeping sickness put many people into a 12 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:04,040 Speaker 1: deep sleep and often resulted in death or post and 13 00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:10,400 Speaker 1: stephilitic parkinstone Ism, a progressive neurodegenerative syndrome that develops after encephalitis. 14 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:13,440 Speaker 1: While the epidemic was in full swing in the late 15 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,280 Speaker 1: nineteen tens, in nineteen twenties, the number and types of 16 00:01:17,319 --> 00:01:22,440 Speaker 1: symptoms increased rapidly. There were similar illnesses that popped up 17 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:26,640 Speaker 1: around the world before the encephalitis lethargica epidemics started in 18 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:31,600 Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. For instance, African sleeping sickness, which 19 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:35,200 Speaker 1: garnered attention in the late eighteen hundreds, has symptoms like 20 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:39,440 Speaker 1: sleepiness and apathy, and there was a disease known as 21 00:01:39,560 --> 00:01:43,759 Speaker 1: La Nona, which was a post fluid complication characterized by 22 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:47,880 Speaker 1: somnolence that was prominent in northern Italy and central Europe 23 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:52,440 Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty nine and eighteen ninety. Somnolence just means 24 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,640 Speaker 1: a person feels sleepy or drowsy, or sleeps for a 25 00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:59,760 Speaker 1: really long time, but the earliest reports of people affected 26 00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:04,400 Speaker 1: by and stephalitis lethargica epidemic are from nineteen sixteen, when 27 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:07,200 Speaker 1: much of the world was occupied with the First World War. 28 00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:11,320 Speaker 1: In fact, the troops marched across Europe during the war 29 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:16,040 Speaker 1: likely helped spread the disease quickly. In France, doctors saw 30 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:19,240 Speaker 1: soldiers who had fallen into a deep sleep, and while 31 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:23,519 Speaker 1: Dr Constantine von Economo was working at a psychiatric neurological 32 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:27,679 Speaker 1: clinic in Vienna, he began seeing patients with strange variations 33 00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:32,960 Speaker 1: of neurological symptoms. They had been diagnosed with conditions like meningitis, 34 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:38,200 Speaker 1: multiplusclerosis and delirium, but those diagnoses didn't quite seem to 35 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,240 Speaker 1: fit the bill. They had malaise, fevers, trouble with their 36 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:45,960 Speaker 1: eye muscles, and a lot of them had lethargy, so 37 00:02:46,120 --> 00:02:50,119 Speaker 1: von Economo figured all these cases stemmed from a sleeping sickness. 38 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:55,160 Speaker 1: Once many of the affected patients began dying, he realized 39 00:02:55,160 --> 00:02:58,960 Speaker 1: how urgent the need to study the condition was. Not 40 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:02,640 Speaker 1: long after the seventeenth meeting, he described the disease in 41 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:07,239 Speaker 1: an article titled Encephalitis lethartica. He said patients would get 42 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:12,920 Speaker 1: headaches and malaise, then somnolence. Those initial symptoms could become 43 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:15,919 Speaker 1: chronic and lead to a coma, or a recovery would 44 00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:21,160 Speaker 1: eventually happen, or the patient could die. French physician Renee 45 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:25,760 Speaker 1: Cruche also saw patients with similar neurological symptoms, and he 46 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:31,320 Speaker 1: distinguished their condition from previous cases of encephalomyelitis or inflammation 47 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:35,120 Speaker 1: of the brain and spinal cord. Crochet published an article 48 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:38,119 Speaker 1: on the disease around the same time as von Economo 49 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:43,240 Speaker 1: published his. Since the disease was causing mental and behavior changes, 50 00:03:43,720 --> 00:03:46,160 Speaker 1: many people did not believe it could be caused by 51 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:50,320 Speaker 1: a virus. At the time, people believed things like trauma 52 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:55,080 Speaker 1: caused mental illness, and the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic, which 53 00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,240 Speaker 1: ended up killing at least fifty million people, was a 54 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:02,280 Speaker 1: medical crisis that demanded a lot of attention. So many 55 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:06,040 Speaker 1: people weren't really convinced by von Economos proposal at first, 56 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:11,440 Speaker 1: but the encephalitis lethargica epidemic was getting worse. Some patients 57 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:14,920 Speaker 1: were sleeping for months and others were dying of exhaustion. 58 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 1: The disease was spreading to children who were losing impulse 59 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:24,520 Speaker 1: control and becoming violent. The Neurological Institute began funding a 60 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:28,839 Speaker 1: lot of the research of the disease and Stephilitis lethargica 61 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:33,520 Speaker 1: cases reached epidemic proportions in Vienna in nineteen seventeen, then 62 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:37,800 Speaker 1: in France and England in nineteen eighteen. By nineteen nineteen, 63 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:41,960 Speaker 1: it has spread throughout most of Europe, Canada, the US, 64 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:46,839 Speaker 1: Central America, and India. The epidemic peaked in nineteen twenty 65 00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:50,640 Speaker 1: and nineteen twenty four and continued into the nineteen thirties. 66 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:55,160 Speaker 1: People who developed parkinston is um required long term care. 67 00:04:56,680 --> 00:04:59,719 Speaker 1: Researchers attempted to discover the cause of the disease and 68 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: the vaccine, but no treatment or cure came of that work. 69 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,320 Speaker 1: When the drug leave Adopa, began to be administered to 70 00:05:07,400 --> 00:05:11,119 Speaker 1: patients with Parkinson's in the nineteen sixties, it was also 71 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:16,680 Speaker 1: given to some patients with encephalitis lethargica, but treatment wasn't successful. 72 00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:23,640 Speaker 1: In the nineteen seven publication Epidemic Encephalitis and Cephalomyelitis, L. 73 00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:28,760 Speaker 1: Mcraft said the following it's dramatic advent on a war 74 00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:32,440 Speaker 1: torn world. It's rapid diffusion to all continents and the 75 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:37,200 Speaker 1: islands of the seas. It's striking and characteristic pathological picture. 76 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,880 Speaker 1: It's astonishing masquerade in the guise of a myriad of 77 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:45,080 Speaker 1: other diseases. It's remarkable shifts of group types and succeeding 78 00:05:45,160 --> 00:05:49,400 Speaker 1: years of its recurrence. And it's almost unfortellable course in 79 00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:53,840 Speaker 1: any individual case, has no parallel in the entire field 80 00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:57,520 Speaker 1: of medicine. And it is doubtful if any plague has 81 00:05:57,560 --> 00:06:01,560 Speaker 1: ever been visited upon humanity that has claimed so many victims, 82 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,040 Speaker 1: has so completely covered the earth and left so many 83 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:10,880 Speaker 1: maimed and crippled recks in its wake. After nineteen forty 84 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:16,160 Speaker 1: cases of encephalitis lethargica were only sporadic during the epidemic. 85 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:19,000 Speaker 1: The disease may have killed half a million people and 86 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:21,800 Speaker 1: affected more than a million, though the true number of 87 00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:27,480 Speaker 1: people afflicted is unknown, and over diagnosis was likely Today, 88 00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:32,159 Speaker 1: exactly what causes encephalitis lethargica and how it's spread is 89 00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:35,839 Speaker 1: still a mystery. It's likely not caused by the flu, 90 00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:39,279 Speaker 1: which many people have thought over the years, and it's 91 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:43,880 Speaker 1: been linked to streptococcal infections. Though only symptoms of the 92 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:47,240 Speaker 1: disease can be treated with medicine. There has been some 93 00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:52,520 Speaker 1: success with steroids, anti parkinson drugs and electro convulsive therapy, 94 00:06:53,320 --> 00:06:57,240 Speaker 1: but because scientists don't know what causes the disease, it's 95 00:06:57,320 --> 00:06:59,880 Speaker 1: hard to say whether it will make a comeback or 96 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:05,320 Speaker 1: how to prevent another epidemic. I'm Eve Stepco and hopefully 97 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:07,880 Speaker 1: you know a little more about history today than you 98 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:11,520 Speaker 1: did yesterday. If you'd like to learn more about the 99 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:14,640 Speaker 1: disease and it's spread in the early nineteen hundreds, listen 100 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:16,960 Speaker 1: to the episode of Stuff you Missed in History class 101 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:21,840 Speaker 1: called and Stuff Elitis letharctica. Get more notes from History 102 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:26,360 Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t d I h 103 00:07:26,520 --> 00:07:31,160 Speaker 1: C Podcast. Thanks again for listening, and I hope you 104 00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:38,280 Speaker 1: come back tomorrow for more delicious morsels of history.