Molly Caldwell Crosby, 304 pagesA fascinating look at a bizarre, forgotten epidemic from the national bestselling author of The American Plague.
In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it arrived.
Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims-who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
I put it here for the record. I only had a glimpse of it. Seven cases are examined. The conclusion seem to be more or less "encephalitis lethargic". Would be interesting to check if fireballs were noticed at the time or a bit before the period.
Extract:
With the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica so widely forgotten in the United States, it is a wonder that the subject ever came to my attention. Sleeping sickness may have been “the forgotten epidemic” to most, but for me it was always present in my grandmother Virginia. The prologue touched on her story. The year was 1929, and she was sixteen years old, living in Dallas, Texas. She had an infection of some type and was feverish the day she fell down the staircase of her parents’ home.
Her parents put her to bed, and she fell asleep—the long, frightening sleep so many patients in this book experienced. She did not open her eyes for 180 days, missing most of her school year. In the days before modern diagnostic tools, her pulse grew so shallow that she was declared dead three different times by her doctors.
And then, miraculously, she awoke. A third of all sleeping sickness patients did recover. Physically, she remained weak and was never able to return to school. Thankful to have her awake again and recovering well, her family did not immediately notice the changes in her personality.