“People have forgotten what life is,” says Robert De Niro's character within the film. Awakening He lived for 30 years after being resurrected from a closed state. “They have forgotten what it is to be alive.”
Based on one true story Dr. Oliver Sacks said, Awareness focuses in exquisite detail on the experiences of just a few extraordinary people affected by a disease. Encephalitis cheapor “sleeping sickness”. Despite its rarity, the disease affected tens of millions of individuals worldwide during and after World War I. Then it disappeared and has remained a mystery for the past century. The query that has never been answered: What causes it?
The disease was first described by a neurologist. Vienna In 1917 It was noted that the initial symptoms were just like the flu, but that's where the similarities ended. Over the following few weeks, some people is not going to give you the option to sleep in any respect, while others can be so drowsy that they'll only get up for a moment. A few minutes to eat.
About half died. At this early stage, nevertheless, people who survived were much more disturbing. After recovery, often after returning to work, many individuals experience stiffness, slowness of their movements, and even their eyes. Stuck in certain positions. Sadly, it progressed slowly. And many – like De Niro's character – were left frozen, unable to talk or move.
But that was not all. Many people will develop monotonous or slurred speech. Some had mood, expression and personality changes. In one study As my colleagues and I examined, we even saw 4 patients who developed kleptomania (compulsive stealing) as a part of their illness.
Gianni Muratore / Alamy Stock Photo
What might be the rationale for this?
Finding the origin of disease will not be as straightforward because it seems. HIV because the explanation for AIDS or HPV because the explanation for cervical cancer were each long journeys and Not quite clear at first. It is similar with encephalitis lethargica.
Given that it began suddenly after which went away, some have suggested it might be related to an infection. The Spanish flu occurred around the identical time, although the primary cases of encephalitis lethargica were earlier. We didn't find any Influenza virus within the minds of the people affected, so it doesn't quite fit into an easy model.
To see what was occurring, we spent several hours rigorously reading through the archives. Records Of greater than 600 patients who had encephalitis lethargica. We found that only 32% of them had a distant flu-like illness within the 12 months before their illness began. And lower than 1% were affected members of the family. So the flu infection story isn't very convincing – at the least by itself.
How about something within the environment? 1917 was adequate. Event year – to say the least – with the First World War involving a lot of people, weapons and supplies. Perhaps it was a brand new chemical getting used. Yet our study found no link amongst individuals who worked with specific substances.
More recently, A New theory Recommended for encephalitis lethargica. The idea is that it might involve an autoimmune process – meaning the body's natural defense mechanism can have turned on itself and attacked the brain.
It occurs elsewhere within the body. A response against cells within the pancreas causes type 1 diabetes, while antibodies to cells within the thyroid gland might be activated. Graves' disease. In the brain, the outcomes might be devastating, and lately, we've come to acknowledge that. Double stiffness It can also be the results of an issue with the immune system.
Something is alleged. Autoimmune encephalitis This is where certain antibodies attack nerve cells within the brain. We found that about half of patients diagnosed with encephalitis lethargica can have autoimmune encephalitis, although this doesn't fit into any of the categories we recognize today.
How can this explain a disease that arose out of nowhere and caused such a variety of symptoms? Some patients noticed that their movements and thoughts were greatly slowed down. Others were delusional, had strange hallucinations and even looked as if it would lose their conscience.
This is where we can have to return to the thought of ​​infection, either the flu or something else. Some can have autoimmune conditions dynamic Caused by some form of infection, which can sound like something the body is acquainted with. It's a great disguise for an invading bug, but once your body recognizes it, it risks turning the body's defenses on itself.
Does all of it really matter? Is it able to solving a pandemic where the last survivor died twenty years ago? Well, sadly, Encephalitis Lethargica was not. The First Nervous Epidemic Of our own kind and – if we don't break it – we won't be ready for the following one.