May 18, 2026

Ep. 35: Wake Up

Show Notes
Transcript

Sleeping Sickness: The Epidemic That Vanished and the Patients Left Behind

It put millions to sleep. Some of them never woke up. Others woke up wrong.

Between 1917 and 1928, a mysterious illness swept the globe, leaving its victims in states of suspended animation, rigid and unreachable, trapped somewhere between sleep and death. Doctors called it encephalitis lethargica. The world called it the sleeping sickness. And then, almost as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, leaving behind no clear cause, no confirmed treatment, and thousands of survivors warehoused in institutions for decades, largely forgotten.

In this episode, Crystal walks Andrea through one of medicine's most enduring unsolved puzzles: what encephalitis lethargica is, what it did to the people it touched, why it vanished, and what its long shadow tells us about the limits of what medicine thinks it understands.

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Welcome to M4 Medicine, mystery,
mayhem, and sometimes murder.

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I'm Andrea Marziano and RN with
35 years of experience across

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various fields.
From direct patient care in

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hospitals to home health,
geriatrics, and injury medicine,

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I face life, death, and
everything in between.

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And I'm Crystal Miller and RN
with 13 1/2 years of experience.

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My work spans home health,
Hospice, emergency care,

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geriatrics, and occupational
health.

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From the chaos of trauma based
quiet moments with patients,

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I've seen stories that defy
explanations.

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We've been friends for over 25
years and as nurses we've shared

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countless stories that have left
us and our families speechless.

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Now we're bringing those stories
and many more to you in

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medicine, mystery, mayhem, and
sometimes murder.

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Each week, we'll uncover cases
that challenge the boundaries of

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medicine, sharing the human
stories behind the science.

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From puzzling medical mysteries
to shocking real life crimes,

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we'll bring you stories that'll
leave you questioning everything

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you thought you knew while.
We're both experiencing treats,

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nurses.
We want to make it clear we're

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not here to give medical advice.
This podcast is about

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storytelling, education and
exploration, not diagnosing or

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treating medical conditions.
This is medicine, mystery,

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mayhem and sometimes murder.
Let's dive in.

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Hey, Crystal, how are you?
I'm doing great.

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How are you?
I am Well, thank you.

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I hear you have some exciting
plans for today.

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I do.
We have a hot date for tonight

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and it's actually kind of funny.
Not what's a hot date?

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I know what a hot date is.
What is your hot?

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Date.
Oh, OK, I see.

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Well, Max came up to me today
and said, hey, after recording,

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why don't we go to Dave and
Buster's?

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Oh wow.
I know I'm like Dave and

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Buster's, which for people who
are listening who don't know

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what that is, it's basically an
arcade sort of skee ball

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experience with bar food.
He said, I just wanted to play

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skee ball and play the
basketball games and stuff.

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I'm like, we, the last time we
played it was I think two years

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ago with our granddaughter
Eliza.

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So after this, we're going to do
that, probably have a

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cheeseburger or something.
I just saw online that they have

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a happy hour during the hours
we'll be there.

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So I guess prices for games is
lower and prices for beverages

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and food are lower.
So we're going to go rocket old

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people and in the arcades, man.
Awesome.

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I remember the first time I went
to school, so I was sorely

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disappointed.
Yeah, yeah, we probably will be

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too.
But it's it's just something to

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do.
We've been talking about how we

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really haven't been doing
anything fun because mostly

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we've been concentrating on
remodeling our cabin and

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reconstructing the garage,
which, as you know, was hit by

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another tree.
I was.

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Just going to say, yeah,
remember that your your garage

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got hit by another tree.
That's fantastic.

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Super super cool.
The damage isn't nearly as bad,

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so hopefully it won't be as
costly either.

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Oh jeez, what a what a fun life.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's just he

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says the universe is against him
with the tree gods, so.

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Yeah, right.
Our is that free trimming I

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think.
Yeah, sounds like it anyway.

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Well, what do you have for us
today?

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I'm excited.
Well, today I'm going to talk

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about encephalitis lethargica.
You may not be familiar with the

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phrase or the name, but there's
actually a quite famous movie

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and book.
The book was written by Oliver

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Sacks.
It's called Awakenings.

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The movie is also called
Awakenings.

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It stars Robin Williams and
Robert De Niro.

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And so for the podcast today,
I'm going to direct you to watch

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that movie.
And thank you.

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Good night.
Excellent.

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Well, I know a lot about
lethargia.

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So my sources are though my
sources really are the the book

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Awakenings by Oliver Sacks,
Constantine von Economo,

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original case descriptions, the
NIH and NINDS on

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encephalitislethargicabrainfax.org
and Howard Markel The Sleeping

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Sickness epidemic.
Around 1919, something strange

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began happening in hospitals
across Europe's Europe's Why?

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Why?
Doctors noticed patients who

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seemed to fall asleep in ways
that defied explanation.

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At first it looked like severe
fatigue, maybe influenza, maybe

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exhaustion from war 'cause
you'll remember this was right

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around the time of World War
One.

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But then something terrifying
happened and the patients didn't

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wake up.
Oh, yeah.

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So what's like everything?
Well, like they.

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But they were alive.
Yeah.

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But what's interesting is they
would sometimes they would sit

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upright in their hospital bed,
but their eyes with their eyes

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open.
But they would.

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They were unmoving, and they
were clearly not focusing on

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anything.
Others would sleep for days, or

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I know, for days or for weeks.
Some could be awakened briefly

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only to sink back into sleep
almost immediately.

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And others became rigid and
motionless and seemingly trapped

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inside their own bodies.
And Druggles.

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Druggles.
Nope.

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Why?
This is my life.

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Some Muggles.
Doctors struggled to explain.

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They could not explain it with
juggles.

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But wait, hold on.
So these people would be in the

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hospital for other reasons, or
they'd be in the hospital for

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the sleep issue and then just,
you know, sleep.

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And honestly, a weeks long nap
sounds pretty darn good.

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Right, Yeah.
So they would come in with

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fatigue and then it it would
progress and it would progress

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in different ways.
It it's, we'll get into this a

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little, little bit later.
So families that were bringing

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these patients in, they they
called it the sleeping sickness.

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And it's important that you
recognize or the OR or listeners

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recognize that this isn't the
same as the African sleeping

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sickness that's caused by seed
sea flies.

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It's entirely different than a
different, much more, much more

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mysterious.
So roughly between 1916 and

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1927, the strange neurological
illness spread across the world,

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infecting more than 1,000,000
people and killing over half a

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million.
Those who survived often did not

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truly recover.
Some remained frozen, unable to

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move or speak for decades.
And today, more than a century

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later, no one knows exactly what
caused it.

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Oh my goodness.
This is the story, like I said,

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of encephalitis lethargica, the
forgotten epidemic that left

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people trapped in time.
OK, the year was 1916.

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Picture it.
World War One had turned cities

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into battlefields, hospitals
into overcrowded wards and

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medical staff into exhausted
witnesses to endless suffering.

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This sounds like such a cheerful
story for a horrible topic.

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Amid this turmoil, physicians in
Vienna began seeing patients

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with unusual symptoms.
So it wasn't, it wasn't Germany

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for us, it was Austria.
Well, there you go so far.

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Patients started with something
mild.

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A sore throat, headache for
fever, fatigue.

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Then something strange would
happen.

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They'd become overwhelmingly
sleepy.

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Not the kind of tired you feel
after a long shift or a

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sleepless night.
This was something deeper.

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Patients would sleep for hours,
then days, sometimes week.

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When doctors shift them awake.
They would respond slowly, speak

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briefly, then drift back into
sleep as it pulled downward by

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gravity.
Phenomenon puzzled physicians.

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In 1917, a neurologist named
Constantine von Econombo say

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that Five Times Fast published
the first detailed description

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of the illness, describing it as
a previously unknown disease

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affecting the brain.
He gave it a name, of course,

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Encephalitis lethargica.
Translated literally, it means

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inflammation of the brain that
causes lethargy.

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So translated more literally
into lay people's terms, it

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means your brain is slowing and
it makes you tired.

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Yeah, that's.
Really tired?

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Yeah, but the name hardly
captured the horror of what

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doctors were about to see.
Within a few years, reports

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began appearing across Europe,
France, Germany, Britain, and

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then the United States.
The illness seemed to appear

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almost randomly.
One town might see dozens of

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cases.
Another nearby nearby town would

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see none.
Patients ranged from children to

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adults, but many were young
teenagers and people in their

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20s.
Doctors began to realize

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eventually they were witnessing
a global epidemic.

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And it's interesting because
this epidemic was also around

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the same time as the Spanish
Flu.

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I'll talk a little bit more
about that in the future also.

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But it, it, this was interesting
that there were potentially two.

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Well, I guess the, the Spanish
Flu was a pandemic and this was

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a global epidemic, but still
it's two things going on at the

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same time.
And between 1915 and 1926, this

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encephalitis Lethargicus spread
across continents and no one

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understood how it spread.
Wow, May I ask a question real

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quick with the descriptor of
encephalitis?

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Were they actually seeing
inflammation in the brain?

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So.
That's also something that I'll

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talk about.
But yeah, they were but in

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autopsies.
So they they weren't necessarily

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able to diagnose the
encephalitis itself from living

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patients, but they were able to
see it in in in autopsies of.

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Yeah, 'cause obviously they
didn't have all the scanners and

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things like that and right
everything, but I wondered what

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they were seeing in an autopsy.
Go ahead.

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And.
Thank you.

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So what's crazy is it didn't
behave exactly like any other

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contagious disease.
Some Some families had multiple

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cases, others had none.
Some families had people with

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the issue and the people without
it.

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Even hospitals sometimes failed
to see, always failed to see a

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clear transmission patterns.
Numbers were staggering.

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Like I said, estimates suggest
that more than 1,000,000 people

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were infected worldwide and over
500,000 deaths occurred.

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But the most haunting cases were
not the ones who died, it was

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the ones who survived.
Do you happen to remember the

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movie Awakenings with Robin
Williams and Robert De Niro?

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00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:03,920
Just vaguely, but not really.
No.

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I don't remember details.
Maybe I have encephalitis

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lethargia?
Maybe.

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Maybe so.
Doctors begin seeing something

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almost impossible to describe.
Some patients didn't sleep.

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Instead, they froze.
They remained conscious,

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sometimes even aware, but unable
to move or speak.

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Imagine being trapped by your
own body.

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You can hear people talking, you
can see the room around you, but

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you cannot move.
You cannot speak.

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You cannot tell anyone you're
still there.

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00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:33,360
Nope.
And that reminds me of those

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those situations.
And we may talk about this in a

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future episode, but I think
about this all the time because

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I feel actually really blessed
and lucky, knock on wood, that I

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don't have this problem.
But those people that go into

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surgery not anesthetized, but
completely paralyzed and frozen

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and can't communicate that
they're feeling every single

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00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:54,200
motion being done to their body?
So terrible.

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00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:57,480
I'm glad I'm not red headed.
Let me ask though, when they

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00:10:57,520 --> 00:10:59,840
were frozen like that could they
eat?

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00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:01,800
Or I mean, how did they stay
alive?

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00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:05,360
It didn't really go into that,
but based on the movie, which I

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00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:07,600
know movies take creative
liberties.

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00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:09,960
Yeah, exactly.
Have license.

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00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:14,000
They were able to the ones that
I mean, some were able to do

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autonomic things, like, I mean,
they were still breathing, for

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example.
So they could they could you

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could put food in their mouth,
they could chew it and swallow

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it.
I imagine there were probably

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some who were on feeding tubes,
things like that.

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One of the other things in the
movie, and I'm sure this is

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00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:31,440
dramatized, but I think it's a
good example of how different

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00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,680
this is than true paralysis.
So Doctor Sachs, one of the

227
00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:38,520
things he does in the movie, as
he's trying to figure out what

228
00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:42,040
all these patients have in
common, he has a specific

229
00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:45,400
patient and he throws a baseball
to her and she lifts her hand

230
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:46,000
and catches it.
I.

231
00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:48,160
Remember that.
Yes.

232
00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:49,480
Nothing else.
No response.

233
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:50,720
No, nothing.
Just catches it.

234
00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:52,840
It's like now it's.
There, right?

235
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,360
I almost wondered too, you know,
if something dangerous was

236
00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:58,480
coming at them, would they would
they respond, you know, flinch

237
00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:00,960
or put their hands up or
something like that with the

238
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:02,040
ball?
Yeah, yeah.

239
00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:02,560
Like that?
Yeah.

240
00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:06,080
That's wild.
There's a there's a story of a

241
00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:10,400
man who was in a facility.
So one of the things that we'll

242
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:14,040
also get to further into this
episode is that a lot of the

243
00:12:14,040 --> 00:12:20,200
patients that were diagnosed in
the 19, late 10s and early 20s

244
00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:24,080
were still patients in the
United States, specifically in

245
00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:27,040
New York in the 1960s.
And that's actually when Doctor

246
00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:29,200
Sacks did all of his research
was in the 60s.

247
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:32,840
And there's a story of a man
that was in that facility and

248
00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:37,480
totally like a statue, devoid of
expression, devoid of anything,

249
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:42,640
just expressionless, etcetera.
And one day, a nurse or somebody

250
00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:47,400
dropped a loud metal tray.
And as it hit the ground, he was

251
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:48,680
startled.
And he said careful.

252
00:12:48,680 --> 00:12:51,000
He said careful.
And then went right back to

253
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,480
nothing.
He's so.

254
00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:57,640
Yeah, so it's like, so like,
they're so there, right?

255
00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:01,000
Like, you just can't imagine.
So doctors described them as

256
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,200
sitting like statues, eyes open,
faces expressionless, completely

257
00:13:04,200 --> 00:13:05,960
motionless.
When they were in this

258
00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:08,720
condition, that became known as
akinetic mutism.

259
00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:12,840
Others with this condition
developed violent muscle spasms,

260
00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:15,040
strange eye movements and
tremors.

261
00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:17,600
Some experienced episodes where
their eyes rolled upward

262
00:13:17,600 --> 00:13:21,480
uncontrollably called oculogyric
crises.

263
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:24,160
Many terrible.
Yeah, it does.

264
00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:27,400
Many developed severe
psychiatric symptoms, psychosis,

265
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:29,800
delusions, uncontrolled
emotional outbursts.

266
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:33,040
Children sometimes experienced
dramatic personality changes.

267
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,720
Previously calm children became
impulsive, aggressive or

268
00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:38,720
emotionally unstable, a
phenomenon in physicians at the

269
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:41,720
time called moral insanity.
Oh boy.

270
00:13:42,600 --> 00:13:46,200
Wow, Yeah, the.
The disease seemed to attack the

271
00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:49,720
brain's systems, controlling
sleep, movement, personality,

272
00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:52,000
behavior.
In other words, the disease

273
00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:54,160
attacked the essence of a
person.

274
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:56,040
Wow.
Can you imagine?

275
00:13:56,040 --> 00:14:00,800
You have, let's just say for,
let's just say Juliana, right?

276
00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:05,400
Hey, Juliana, how you doing?
You know, you're visiting her

277
00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:09,320
one day and she starts to have a
sore throat, has a fever and

278
00:14:09,320 --> 00:14:12,680
it's feeling tired.
And three days later, she is a

279
00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:15,520
statue.
Like that's how it happened.

280
00:14:15,560 --> 00:14:17,720
Maybe not three days later I
made that part up, but still,

281
00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:19,200
like that's how this was
happening.

282
00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:24,000
This was going from a perfectly
functioning human being to a

283
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:28,640
sore throat with a fever and
some tiredness to robot statue

284
00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:31,000
void.
Right.

285
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:32,480
Wow.
Check in on me in a couple of

286
00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:34,440
days because I've got a sore
throat and I'm tired.

287
00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:38,920
So if I become a statue tomorrow
or three days from now, or at

288
00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:41,480
any point in time, please check
in on me.

289
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:43,320
I will.
I will.

290
00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:46,360
That's wild, and I'm excited to
hear about vectors or any other

291
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:49,400
transmission that I'm sure
you'll indicate any minute now.

292
00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:55,040
Oh, any minute.
So there were three phases of

293
00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:57,560
this disease.
The one, number one is the SOB.

294
00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:01,000
I hate this word.
The somnolent form.

295
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:04,120
This is the version that most
people associate with the

296
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:06,280
disease.
Patients become overwhelmingly

297
00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:07,800
sleepy.
They can sleep nearly

298
00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:09,720
continuously, even when
awakened.

299
00:15:09,720 --> 00:15:12,600
They drifted back to sleep
within minutes, and some slept

300
00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:15,400
for weeks or months.
Then there's the hyperkinetic

301
00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:17,360
form.
Other patients developed the

302
00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:19,640
opposite problem.
Instead of sleepiness, they

303
00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:23,640
experienced agitation, insomnia,
uncontrollable movements, mania,

304
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:26,080
psychosis.
Some patients shouted

305
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:30,000
uncontrollably, a symptom called
clasomania, involving sudden

306
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:33,000
screaming fits.
And then there was the a kinetic

307
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:34,920
form, perhaps the most
disturbing.

308
00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:36,920
Patients became rigid and
motionless.

309
00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:39,400
They developed symptoms
resembling Parkinson's disease,

310
00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:42,280
like tremors, stiffness, slow
movement, loss of facial

311
00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:44,800
expression.
Some eventually lost the ability

312
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,520
to move entirely.
You might ask, how did doctors

313
00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:52,120
know that these were all the
same disease, right?

314
00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:54,600
We're talking about the early
20th century.

315
00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:57,800
How did they know, right?
Well, and one of them looked

316
00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:00,960
like Tourette's too.
I mean, yeah, exactly.

317
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:02,880
Uncontrollably and for heaven's
sakes.

318
00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:06,200
And what's crazy, sorry to use
the word crazy, but what's wild

319
00:16:06,200 --> 00:16:08,320
about that is that.
Yeah, that was my first thought

320
00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:12,240
and why I wanted to look into.
It's a really, it seemed like a

321
00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:15,480
really big leap to be like these
three things that I feel like

322
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:18,720
could be potentially explained
by other neurological diseases.

323
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:21,120
We're saying this is the same
neurological disease that isn't

324
00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:25,840
any of those others, for
example, narcolepsy or Eretz or

325
00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:28,440
Parkinson's.
This question gets us into some

326
00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:31,040
fascinating detective work by
early neurologists.

327
00:16:31,160 --> 00:16:35,200
Well, yeah, because I wonder
too, if because it was also

328
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:38,360
often when a new disease or
disorder comes up, a lot of

329
00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:40,120
different things are put in the
same bucket.

330
00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:42,520
It's like, oh, this sort of
connects and that sort of

331
00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:45,120
connects, so it must all be
whatever.

332
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,480
But these things are so diverse
I wouldn't be putting them in

333
00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:50,160
the same bucket.
I wouldn't either.

334
00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:51,520
That's why I was like, wait a
SEC.

335
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:53,000
Yeah.
And again, they could

336
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:54,840
theoretically be explained by
existing.

337
00:16:54,840 --> 00:16:56,920
Well, I I'm assuming that those
three can.

338
00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,480
Those diagnosis existed at the
time, but I imagine they did

339
00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:01,520
narcolepsy, turess and tarp
Parkinson's.

340
00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:03,880
I don't.
Know and even if the even if the

341
00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:08,200
diagnosis didn't exist, the
syndrome syndromes may have and

342
00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:10,680
they may not have called them
the same thing, but there were

343
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:12,680
still things going on.
Right.

344
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:16,119
So at first, physicians did not
think these cases were related

345
00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:18,040
at all.
Which makes perfect sense,

346
00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:19,480
right?
The symptoms were too different.

347
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,200
Some patients slept constantly.
Some were hyperactive and

348
00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:23,640
agitated.
Some became rigid and

349
00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:25,760
motionless.
But several clues helped doctors

350
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:27,560
connect them.
The same early illness.

351
00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:29,400
Doctors noticed something
striking.

352
00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:32,800
Nearly all patients began with
the same early symptoms.

353
00:17:33,120 --> 00:17:37,040
Fever, headache, sore throat,
fatigue, and then neurological

354
00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:40,040
symptoms followed.
So this pattern suggested a

355
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:42,160
single underlying illness
attacking the brain.

356
00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:45,400
The timing of the epidemic
talked across Europe begin

357
00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:47,480
reporting cases within the same
few years.

358
00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:50,760
Even though symptoms differed,
the timing was identical.

359
00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:55,880
Patients appeared in
1916191719181919.

360
00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:59,160
This overlap suggested a single
epidemic disease rather than

361
00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:01,760
unrelated conditions.
And then, like I was saying,

362
00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:04,720
brain autopsies.
Autopsies revealed that patients

363
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,200
with all three forms of the
illness showed damage in the

364
00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:10,600
same areas of the brain,
especially the midbrain, the

365
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:13,960
basal ganglia and regions
controlling sleep and movement.

366
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:19,520
So is there, I'm sorry, was was
there atrophy or sign of

367
00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:23,200
infection or did it, did it say
or just plain damage?

368
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:25,200
Yeah.
It just said damage.

369
00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:27,720
So wouldn't it be interesting to
see Mris on that now?

370
00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:29,400
Or CT.
Yeah, seriously.

371
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:33,960
Seriously So the Perhaps the
most convincing evidence came

372
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:35,680
from patients whose symptoms
evolved.

373
00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:39,080
So some patients began with the
sleepy form, but months later

374
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:42,520
they developed tremors.
Rigid muscles slowed movement.

375
00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:45,360
In other words, the disease
transformed from the somnolent

376
00:18:45,360 --> 00:18:48,720
form to the parkinsonian form.
Doctors realized they were

377
00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:51,440
seeing different stages of the
same illness.

378
00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:55,680
Additionally, clusters of mixed
cases hospitals sometimes

379
00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:58,600
admitted multiple patients at
the same time within the same

380
00:18:58,600 --> 00:19:00,280
ward.
Doctor saw one patient sleep

381
00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:03,520
constantly, another wildly
agitated, another completely

382
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:05,520
rigid.
Yet they all had arrived at the

383
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:09,080
same sorry, they all had arrived
with the same early infection.

384
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:12,880
This strongly suggests 1DS1
disease with different

385
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:16,000
neurological effects.
Why did the disease look so

386
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,200
different in different people?
Modern neurologists believe the

387
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:21,200
disease probably attacked
different parts of the brain in

388
00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:23,520
different patients.
For example, damage near the

389
00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:25,920
sleep centers would cause
overwhelming sleepiness.

390
00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:29,320
Damage in the basal ganglia
would cause Parkinson like

391
00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:31,640
symptoms.
Damage in the emotional

392
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:34,920
regulation centers would cause
psychosis or screening episodes.

393
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:37,960
In other words, it was the same
disease, but its effects

394
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:40,880
depended on which brain circuits
were inflamed.

395
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:44,560
Did it matter age?
Did they notice the correlation?

396
00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:46,760
They were they were mostly
young, they were mostly young

397
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:51,280
adults and teenagers, which
actually also accounts for why

398
00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:54,520
there were still patients in
this center in New York in the

399
00:19:54,520 --> 00:19:57,120
1960s 'cause they had also.
Been young, right?

400
00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:00,080
Interesting.
Here's what's interesting The

401
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:03,120
epidemic eventually faded.
By the late 1920s, new cases

402
00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:05,240
became rare.
But the story didn't end there.

403
00:20:05,360 --> 00:20:09,240
Many patients survived and
developed post encephalitic

404
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:12,120
parkinsonism.
A neurological disorder similar

405
00:20:12,120 --> 00:20:14,360
to Parkinson's disease.
Well, that's not fair.

406
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:16,720
Yeah.
So these are the patients that

407
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:19,600
actually I think, yeah, exactly.
These are the patients that

408
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:21,760
ended up in these long term care
facilities, right?

409
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:23,840
They slowly lost their ability
to move normally.

410
00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:26,920
Some became frozen in place,
others developed uncontrollable

411
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:29,080
ticks and spasms.
Many were placed in long term

412
00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:32,000
hospitals, and there they
remained for decades.

413
00:20:33,120 --> 00:20:36,240
By the 1960s, hospitals in the
United States still housed

414
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:39,720
dozens of these patients.
Some had been institutionalized

415
00:20:39,720 --> 00:20:43,400
for 40 years.
They were alive, but barely

416
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:45,720
responsive.
They sat in chairs or laid in

417
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:49,680
bed, silent, motionless, like
living statues.

418
00:20:50,120 --> 00:20:54,400
And then a neurologist named
Oliver Sacks arrived.

419
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:55,240
Go.
Ahead.

420
00:20:55,520 --> 00:21:00,280
So pardon me, were these
symptoms, as they continued to

421
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:04,400
stay in the encephalitis state,
were these symptoms progressive

422
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,520
or had the damage started and
completed and then they just

423
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:11,640
were suffering the consequences?
It seems like the latter.

424
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,160
It seems like the damage had
started, had completed, and they

425
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:15,960
were just kind of suffering the
consequences.

426
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,320
I mean, imagine being, I can't
imagine you would be.

427
00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:21,320
You could be institutionalized
for 40 years if it was a

428
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:25,480
progressive disease, right?
Think about somebody diagnosed,

429
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:27,480
Yeah, it seems to be diagnosed
with Parkinson's disease.

430
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:29,160
They're not going to live for 40
years after they're.

431
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:29,880
Diagnosed.
Yeah, that's.

432
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:31,280
True, we wish they would, but
they're not going.

433
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:34,440
To right, right.
And that's another thing I guess

434
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:36,400
you could say you could that
would set it apart from

435
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:40,080
Parkinson's is that they aren't
dying it shortly thereafter.

436
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:42,400
Their prognosis, they probably
didn't know it at the time, but

437
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,480
their prognosis is better than
with Parkinson's.

438
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:46,880
I mean well.
It's kind of.

439
00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:48,800
As far as staying alive, that's
what I was just going.

440
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:51,280
To say, I mean, I'm thinking I'd
like an end date, yeah, but

441
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:54,960
yeah, so.
Doctor Oliver Sacks worked at a

442
00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:57,360
hospital in New York that cared
for patients who had survived

443
00:21:57,360 --> 00:22:00,840
the encephalitis lethargic
epidemic, and at his time in the

444
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:03,360
hospital he learned about a new
drug that had just been

445
00:22:03,360 --> 00:22:06,360
developed called L Dopa.
He thought that it might help

446
00:22:06,360 --> 00:22:08,600
them.
So I don't know how L dopa.

447
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:09,920
I should have looked this up,
but I didn't.

448
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:13,720
I don't know how L dopa relates
to our current drug, levodopa.

449
00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:15,240
I was wondering.
Yeah.

450
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:17,560
But I imagine.
Yeah, sure.

451
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:19,320
That would be great.
I imagine it's similar.

452
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:22,160
It may even be a predecessor to
it.

453
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:23,920
But that precursor.
Yeah.

454
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,280
Because I know that levodopa is
commonly used in medicine now

455
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:30,800
for neurological disorders.
Mostly, I believe my mom takes

456
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:32,760
it.
Parkinson's, yeah, and I think

457
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,240
Huntington's also, and maybe
ALS, I'm not sure.

458
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:40,120
So L dopa increased dopamine in
the brain and doctors hoped it

459
00:22:40,120 --> 00:22:43,600
might treat Parkinson's disease.
So Sachs decided to try it on

460
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,400
his patients.
And the results were

461
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,080
astonishing.
Patients who have been frozen

462
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:52,960
for decades suddenly woke up.
They began to move, to talk, to

463
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:55,720
laugh.
Some walked the first time in

464
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,600
years.
Caveat, I would love to know if

465
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,680
they walked for the first time
in years, how did they not have

466
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,880
severe muscle atrophy?
How did they manage that?

467
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:09,800
Because I mean, if they truly
did not have muscle atrophy,

468
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:13,440
then that was some really good
work by the hospital staff to

469
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:19,160
keep those muscles.
And just for insert point L dopa

470
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:23,040
does seem to stand for levodopa
Levodopa.

471
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:24,840
There we go.
Yeah.

472
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,200
Sachs reported that it was as if
they had been released from a

473
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:30,560
long sleep.
And he documented, like I said,

474
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,320
these extraordinary cases in his
book Awakenings, which was

475
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,440
published in 1973.
But there's sad news.

476
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,800
The miracle was temporary, and
many patients experienced severe

477
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:42,520
side effects.
Others relaxed.

478
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:45,920
Still, for a brief moment, they
returned.

479
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,240
I cannot imagine wake.
OK.

480
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,480
But like, let's really stop and
just think for a moment.

481
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:54,600
Truly, we're kind of old to wake
up after 40 years, probably.

482
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,840
But I mean, I guess we could
even, we could even, let's just

483
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,240
go back.
Well, it's hard, it's hard to do

484
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,360
this, this finding this thought
experiment because we know

485
00:24:03,360 --> 00:24:05,320
exactly what happened between
the 80s and now.

486
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:09,960
But let's just say we fell into
a deep sleep in 1980 and we woke

487
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,600
up in 2021.
Of the things I like to do when

488
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,200
I go home to Utah is I like to
drive around my old to this day,

489
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:18,320
I like to drive around my old
neighborhoods and I like to see

490
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:20,440
what's different and what's the
same, right?

491
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:26,480
And of course, over the course
of 50 years of life, lots of

492
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:28,520
things have changed.
Of course, some things have

493
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:30,560
stayed the same, but I would say
more things have changed than

494
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:34,440
have stayed the same, right?
And I just cannot imagine.

495
00:24:35,120 --> 00:24:37,960
I cannot imagine.
For example, I grew up in an

496
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,440
orchard area.
The majority of the land that

497
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:44,240
surrounded my, I lived in a
little area of homes, but I'm

498
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,240
surrounded by orchards.
And so I watched as each of

499
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:50,560
those orchards got subdivided,
you know, and turned into

500
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,920
subdivisions.
And I watched that slowly year

501
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,660
over year over year.
And I cannot imagine, quote UN

502
00:24:57,660 --> 00:25:01,520
quote, going to sleep one day
and living in, you know,

503
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,880
surrounded by a dozen orchards
and waking up the next day and

504
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,960
suddenly I've been suburban or
even semi urban hell.

505
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:12,640
Right.
Well, and if you think about it,

506
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,760
even if you think about it from
the perspective of someone who

507
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:20,520
had lived 100 years and the
things they've literally seen

508
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:24,280
and over time going, Oh my
goodness, it went from this to

509
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:26,960
that.
And that's a long span.

510
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:30,120
I mean, obviously these people
weren't 100 years, but when you

511
00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:33,120
think of all the changes that
could happen in that time frame,

512
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:38,240
and it makes me wonder too with,
with the information that they

513
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:44,560
woke up, how much did they
perceive as they were sitting

514
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:46,120
there?
I mean, if people were coming in

515
00:25:46,120 --> 00:25:49,720
and as staff do their talk about
current events and things when

516
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,000
they're moving people around,
'cause sometimes we forget that

517
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,240
people in a coma or something
like that or vegetative state do

518
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:58,600
actually potentially have
hearing abilities.

519
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,240
And so we'll talk about things
that are not particularly

520
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,680
patient related.
And I wonder if some of that

521
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:09,160
would have sunk in and they
would have had some knowledge of

522
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:11,040
of current events just based on
that well.

523
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,720
I imagine that it probably is a
case by case basis, but I do

524
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:19,240
know that there is a story of a
woman who was given the L dopa

525
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,120
and they call it woke up.
So I'm just going to call it

526
00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:23,880
that.
I feel like it's a misnomer, but

527
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:25,800
it's not my, it's not my
science, right?

528
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,640
So she woke up, and she
immediately began telling

529
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,120
stories about the 1920s as
though they had happened

530
00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:33,560
yesterday.
So she was still sort.

531
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,280
Of recently happened, yeah, OK.
That it that it air quotes

532
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:39,560
recently happened that it
actually happened in the 20s.

533
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,760
You think about going back to
the thought experiment, you

534
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,880
think about all the things that
have occurred since 1980.

535
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,000
OK, We didn't have home
computers.

536
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:50,160
We certainly didn't have
laptops.

537
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:52,640
We didn't have cell phones.
We didn't have cell phones that

538
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:56,200
were home computers, right.
We didn't have the Internet, we

539
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,600
didn't have e-books.
We I mean, we didn't have

540
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,160
grocery delivery.
I remember, I don't know if

541
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,440
you've ever watched this because
it's not necessarily a very,

542
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,040
very popular movie, but do you
know the movie The Net with

543
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:08,600
Sandra Bullock?
No.

544
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,000
So it's an early, I think it's
early 90s.

545
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,720
I'm not 100% sure but it's
definitely like pre Internet

546
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,160
being common.
And one of the things that

547
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,480
happens in the movie is she
orders a pizza from her

548
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,200
computer.
And I remember at the time

549
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,400
thinking that is the most
ridiculous thing.

550
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,200
Like, that is just so silly, so
sci-fi silliness, right?

551
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:29,880
And we've done that how many
times?

552
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:30,680
The last 6.
Months, right.

553
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,080
Exactly, exactly.
The last six months, Right.

554
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,360
And so, yeah, so it's just like
that all those things would

555
00:27:36,360 --> 00:27:38,240
happen immediately in a link of
an eye.

556
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:39,080
I can't.
Remember.

557
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,240
And it's and think about the
psychological shock of that.

558
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,760
I don't even know.
I mean, I, I, I know, I keep

559
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,480
being, I'm always like this in
our episodes.

560
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,080
I get speechless because I just,
they're just, it's so

561
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,400
unimaginable because I don't, I
mean, I've woken up and it was

562
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,080
6:00 PM instead of 8:00 AM and
that's psychologically shocking.

563
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,400
And then, and I'm not trying to
make light of it because it is

564
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:02,000
right.
It's like, oh, no, wait, what?

565
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,280
Or like when you woke for.
A week and and you go, wow, I've

566
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,480
missed everything.
You know, nothing really has

567
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:09,040
happened.
Exactly.

568
00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:13,440
I I cannot imagine.
And then the other thing that is

569
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:17,240
interesting is Doctor probably
could not have gotten away with

570
00:28:17,360 --> 00:28:20,520
treating these patients today
like he did in the 1960s because

571
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,520
it was experimental and really
he had no guardrails when it

572
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:28,080
came to when it came to these
this experiment.

573
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,680
And so, yeah, you're right.
Exactly.

574
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,160
It's interesting to to think and
I know, OK, this is another

575
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:37,920
scene from the movie.
And so I know, again, just to

576
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,560
reiterate, I know that movies
take artistic liberties.

577
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,560
But in one of the scenes, he'd
been given permission by his

578
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,320
superiors or whoever is in
charge of giving permission to

579
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:49,800
give the patients a specific
dose.

580
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,000
And I think it was 30 milligrams
or something of the L dopa.

581
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,280
And he's seen sneaking and
giving one of them 100

582
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,280
milligrams.
And and that's when this patient

583
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,760
wakes up, right?
And so did that really happen in

584
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:03,240
real life?
I don't know.

585
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,760
But again, you get to the ethics
of there was nothing to stop him

586
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,600
other than somebody giving him
permission to do less and him

587
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,240
doing more, right?
Right.

588
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,680
And again, you wouldn't get AI
don't think he'd honestly get

589
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:16,920
away with it, but I don't think
he'd be able to.

590
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,640
I don't think that that he'd be
given that option today.

591
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,360
Yeah, there are definitely
different rules around testing

592
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:24,200
and things like that than there
used to be.

593
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:27,040
Not wild Wild West anymore as
much.

594
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,520
It is not.
So I thought that I would share

595
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:34,520
some stories of some of these
patients.

596
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:38,640
So the first patient, like I
said, was just was discovered by

597
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:43,280
Constantine von Kanemo in Vienna
in 1917.

598
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:46,440
And he was the first to describe
the illness.

599
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,200
And he encountered a young woman
in Vienna.

600
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:51,880
She arrived at the hospital with
what seemed like an ordinary

601
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,160
infection, headache, fever and
exhaustion.

602
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,880
Then she began sleeping.
Not normal sleep, deep, nearly

603
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,680
continuous sleep.
Hospital staff could wake her

604
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:02,080
briefly.
She would answer simple

605
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,600
questions, but within moments,
her eyelids would droop and she

606
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:06,640
would drift back into
unconsciousness.

607
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,400
Days past, then weeks.
Eventually she died.

608
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,520
During the autopsy, Van Ekonomo
discovered inflammation deep

609
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,120
within the brain, particularly
in regions that control sleep

610
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,480
and movement, and this
observation was the what became

611
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:21,640
the foundation for recognizing
the disease.

612
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,120
One of the most haunting cases
recorded in early medical in

613
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,280
early medical literature
involved a teenage boy in

614
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,480
Germany.
He had originally developed a

615
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,640
mild illness with fever.
Then his body began slowing

616
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:36,520
down.
His movements became sluggish,

617
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,680
his face lost expression, but
soon he sat completely still for

618
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:42,800
hours.
Doctors described him as

619
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,160
resembling a statue in a museum.
He could move if strongly

620
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,640
encouraged, but every action
required enormous effort.

621
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:51,920
Walking became nearly
impossible.

622
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,160
Eventually he stopped speaking
altogether.

623
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,040
The doctor believed he remained
conscious but locked inside his

624
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,600
own body.
This form of disease later

625
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,160
became recognized as post
encephalitic Parkinsonism, which

626
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,680
mimicked Parkinson's disease
decades before most people had

627
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,920
heard of it.
So I was wrong.

628
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:10,880
Parkinson's didn't exist as a
diagnosis.

629
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,200
Awkward.
Awkward.

630
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,160
I'm not surprised 'cause I think
that's more modern.

631
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,320
Those things are more modern.
Diagnosis.

632
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:20,280
No worries.
Another disturbing case was

633
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:22,040
described by physicians in
France.

634
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,880
A young girl recovered from the
initial sleepy stage of the

635
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:26,760
disease.
Then something strange began to

636
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:28,520
happen.
Without warning, she would

637
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,960
scream loudly, not out of fear,
not in response to anything

638
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,840
around her, just a sudden
explosive screaming.

639
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,640
Doctors called the symptom.
I said this before klasomania,

640
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,720
meaning uncontrollable shouting.
The episodes could occur dozens

641
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:42,920
of times a day.
Between episodes, she behaved

642
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,040
normally.
This strange symptom became one

643
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:47,760
of the clues that the illness
was affecting the basal ganglia,

644
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,400
a part of the brain that
regulates movement and emotional

645
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:51,840
expression.
Well.

646
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,600
Of course, the most famous cases
are the ones documented by

647
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,480
Oliver Sacks in the 1960s in a
hospital in New York.

648
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,200
He described patients who sat
silently in wheelchairs.

649
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:01,840
So they sat silently in
wheelchairs.

650
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,080
They showed almost no movement.
They rarely spoke.

651
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,440
They sometimes seem unaware of
the world around them.

652
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,680
But then, like I said something
occasionally something

653
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,600
remarkable would happen.
A nurse might say their name, or

654
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:13,880
music would start playing, and
suddenly the patient would move

655
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,920
or speak briefly, as if the
person inside was still there.

656
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:20,880
After being given the L dopa,
one patient began walking

657
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,120
through the hospital hallways
after decades of immobility.

658
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,120
Another started telling stories
from the 1920s as if the

659
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,240
intervening decades had never
happened.

660
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:31,680
That would be the weird thing.
Yeah, it would.

661
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:33,640
These are more interesting
cases.

662
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,960
One of the most dramatic early
cases described by neurologists

663
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,040
involved a young woman admitted
to the hospital in Vienna around

664
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,320
in 1917.
And like I said, she also

665
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:44,840
arrived with symptoms that
seemed familiar to any physician

666
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,040
of the era.
Headache, fever, sore throat,

667
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,760
exhaustion.
Of course, the doctors suspected

668
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,720
influenza or a routine
infection.

669
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,160
Then she fell asleep.
The nurses tried to wake her for

670
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:55,920
meals.
They could rouse her briefly,

671
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,720
but she would not stay awake
even long enough to eat.

672
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,000
She'd open her eyes and then
drift back into sleep within

673
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,480
seconds.
Doctors quickly realized this

674
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,600
was not ordinary sleep.
Her body temperature fluctuated

675
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,080
unpredictably.
Her eye movements were abnormal.

676
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,040
Her reflexes were sluggish.
Days passed, then weeks.

677
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,720
For nearly six weeks she existed
in a strange, half conscious

678
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,480
state, sleeping almost
constantly.

679
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,920
Doctors would wake her only
briefly for feeding and basic

680
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,360
care as much as they could.
Then, suddenly, just as

681
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,160
mysteriously as it had begun,
the sleep ended.

682
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,120
She woke up fully awake and
alert.

683
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:36,480
She had no memory of the
previous month and a half of her

684
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,800
life.
What in 1917?

685
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:43,000
One died, one just woke up.
But she remembered nothing about

686
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,000
the experience.
Nothing remembered, nothing

687
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,480
about the experience.
Well, so then that sounds like a

688
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:52,280
coma state, except that.
She could answer, she could

689
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,880
briefly answer questions, She
could sometimes eat just like it

690
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,560
was like this trash coma almost,
you know?

691
00:33:58,880 --> 00:33:59,400
Wow.
But she didn't.

692
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,280
Remember, she didn't remember
any of it.

693
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,160
She didn't remember that she had
eaten or had her bed bath or

694
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:07,120
whatever the case may be.
Well, it's interesting to me too

695
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,159
that there was uncontrollable
fever.

696
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,679
So that does indicate maybe
Teria load.

697
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,520
Yeah, another chilling case
involved the 12 year old boy in

698
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,120
London during the early 1920s.
Before the illness, his parents

699
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:21,440
described him as gentle and shy.
He loved books.

700
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,280
He was quiet in school.
Then he became sick with fever

701
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:25,639
and fatigue.
Sound familiar?

702
00:34:26,639 --> 00:34:28,440
At first it seemed like a minor
infection.

703
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,360
But after recovering, something
about him had changed radically.

704
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,120
He became impulsive, aggressive,
restless.

705
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:36,880
He'd been shouting and running
through the house.

706
00:34:37,159 --> 00:34:39,440
He stole food from the kitchen
and ate compulsively.

707
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:41,840
He screamed for no reason and
sometimes laughed

708
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:43,960
uncontrollably.
Sometimes he raged.

709
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:47,480
Doctors observed strange
neurological symptoms, rapid eye

710
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,040
movements, muscle spasms,
uncontrollable shouting, and

711
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,560
this behavioral transformation
shocked physicians.

712
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,600
Children with encephalitis
lethargica sometimes developed

713
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,160
what doctors at the time called
post encephalitic personality

714
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,280
disorder.
Today, neurologist sleep

715
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,760
inflammation likely damaged
areas of the brain involved

716
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,360
involved in sorry and I I know
I've said this, I'm kind of

717
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,120
repeating myself, but involved
in impulse control, emotional

718
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,440
regulation, behavior.
In other words, the disease had

719
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,760
literally rewired his brain and
changed his personality.

720
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:21,360
Many children who survived the
epidemic experience lifelong

721
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:23,600
behavioral and psychiatric
changes.

722
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:25,880
So.
What's interesting too to me

723
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:30,960
just as a whole moment when a
child is developing the amygdala

724
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,280
and hippocampus and all of that
are still processing their

725
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,200
development.
So it's not surprising to me

726
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:41,760
that if at that, those moments
of development they're damaged,

727
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:45,840
then that will prevent or even
stop altogether the emotional

728
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:48,760
developments they would normally
have if this was not affected.

729
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:50,160
For sure.
That's wild.

730
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:50,920
It's.
Yeah.

731
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:54,040
So not a good way.
No, not a good way.

732
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:56,880
So perhaps one of the most
haunting stories comes from the

733
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,840
survivors treated decades later
by Oliver Sacks.

734
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,520
And this patient is portrayed in
the movie by Robert De Niro.

735
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,480
This patient had contracted
encephalitis lethargica as a

736
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:09,360
teenager in the 1920s.
After the initial illness, his

737
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,440
body gradually slowed.
His muscles stiffened.

738
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,360
His movements became extremely
slow.

739
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:15,920
Eventually, he could barely move
at all.

740
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,040
By the time he reached
adulthood, he was almost

741
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,200
completely motionless.
He sat in a hospital chair for

742
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,560
years, then decades.
Visitors described him as

743
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,960
silent, expressionless, frozen.
He remained in the state for

744
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,400
over 30 years.
Then, in the 1960s, when Sachs

745
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,880
administered the medication L
Dopa, something remarkable

746
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,320
happened.
Within days, the man began

747
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:39,400
moving.
Within weeks, he was walking

748
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,880
through the hospital halls.
He began talking, laughing.

749
00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:44,840
He asked nurses what year it
was.

750
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:46,360
They told him it was the late
60s.

751
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,800
He was stunned.
To him, the world had been 1926

752
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,800
only moments ago.
He began asking about events and

753
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,040
people from the 1920s, unaware
that decades had passed.

754
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:58,720
For a brief period, he seemed
fully alive again.

755
00:36:58,720 --> 00:37:02,200
Now in the movie Doctor Sachs
takes about like shows in the

756
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:03,760
world.
I don't know if that happened or

757
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:05,040
not.
There's nothing mentioned about

758
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,840
it in my research.
He did eventually relapse and

759
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:10,680
was basically back to how he
was.

760
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,320
Immobile, expressionless,
modeless, motionless.

761
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,120
Does it say how long it took for
that to happen?

762
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:17,480
The relapse.
It didn't.

763
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,480
I didn't.
Well, it may not that I saw so.

764
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,280
Now, what was interesting is
because a couple of them you

765
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,360
said we're almost immediate, the
relapse was like, it almost

766
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,760
seems like there was a jump
start to the brain and maybe it

767
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,520
connected things for a minute
and then and then it.

768
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,080
Stops which?
Makes me wonder how the L dopa

769
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:36,480
works just.
What I was wondering, I was

770
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,720
wondering if like the the L dopa
goes in and it tells the brain,

771
00:37:39,720 --> 00:37:42,560
hey, more dopamine and the brain
is like, oh, thank you finally I

772
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:44,640
needed this.
And then somehow maybe the brain

773
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,680
rejects it.
Maybe the brain processes that

774
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,920
first dose or those first doses
and it's like, this is so cool.

775
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:51,480
And then it's like, this isn't
dopamine.

776
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:53,760
Right, we recognize it.
Or maybe it builds up a

777
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:55,840
tolerance?
Yeah, maybe.

778
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:57,080
Yeah, I don't know.
So how?

779
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:58,640
What was the cause?
Right?

780
00:37:58,720 --> 00:38:01,440
Unfortunately, guess what?
We don't know.

781
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,200
We still don't know.
We don't know, but here are the

782
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,360
theories theory #1 the 1918 flu,
Spanish flu pandemic.

783
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,440
I said this epidemic occurred
around the same time.

784
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:13,560
Some scientists believe
influenza may have triggered the

785
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:15,800
illness, possibly through an
immune reaction attacking the

786
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:17,960
brain, but no definitive
evidence has been found.

787
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:20,920
One of the things I would like
to say about this is that having

788
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,160
been having gone through COVID
twice and recently, which, which

789
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:28,640
I podcasted a lot of COVID, I am
experiencing some of the

790
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:32,040
symptoms of, of long COVID.
And one of those symptoms is

791
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,400
fatigue.
And I think I've told you that

792
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,880
there are days I'm going through
this crazy sleep situation where

793
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:40,320
there are days when I could
barely keep my eyes open at 2:00

794
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,400
PM and I've got to finish work,
you know, until 6:00 and then

795
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,800
I'm to bed, I'm done.
And then there are days like the

796
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,960
other night where I can't sleep
at all.

797
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:51,320
Like I'm tired.
It's typical insomnia.

798
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:52,880
I'm tired, I'm yawning, all the
things.

799
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,280
I just can't sleep because it
all came about, came upon me

800
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,440
after I had COVID.
I'm I'm certain it's long COVID.

801
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,240
Am I self diagnosing?
Yeah, sure.

802
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,360
But I feel confident.
I wonder for the.

803
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:04,160
Win.
In fact, I didn't.

804
00:39:05,720 --> 00:39:07,320
Use Redmond DI.
Use the Cleveland Clinic.

805
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:07,920
No, I'm just.
Kidding.

806
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:08,760
Of course.
Of course.

807
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,160
But it makes me wonder if
there's the same relational sort

808
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:13,920
of situation right to the
Spanish flu.

809
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:17,800
Putting it out there simply,
maybe this this encephalitis is

810
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,600
long Spanish flu or something.
I don't know, just a thought I

811
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:22,440
had.
Yeah, well, it makes sense.

812
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,040
It seems like there could be
some sort of crossover or some

813
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:29,440
sort of latent influenza virus
that hangs around and then gets

814
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:33,000
reactivated for whatever reason.
Theory #2 Autoimmune disease.

815
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,200
More recent research suggests
the disease may have been

816
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,120
autoimmune.
In other words, the body's

817
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,040
immune system mistakenly
attacked the brain.

818
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,760
Some modern patients with
similar symptoms show antibodies

819
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,560
targeting brain receptors.
I personally don't buy this

820
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,600
because it happened in such a
cluster and autoimmune diseases

821
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,480
are not contractible or sorry,
they're not contagious.

822
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:54,280
That to me doesn't make any
sense.

823
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,360
I'm no scientist, I have not
been studying encephalitis

824
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:59,840
lethargica, but I don't, I don't
think that makes sense at all.

825
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,600
That's just, again, it's the
clustering more than anything.

826
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,640
If you, if you tell me there's a
cluster of people with

827
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,080
fibromyalgia or a cluster of
people with Hashimoto's or we

828
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,480
don't typically see that, right?
And again, there were some

829
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,760
families that everybody in the
family suddenly got.

830
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,080
It was so sudden and everybody
suddenly got it and they got it

831
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,520
at the same time.
It wasn't like every person in

832
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:21,760
the family when they turned 13
suddenly they had these

833
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:23,640
symptoms, right?
It was all at the same time.

834
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:25,800
But I don't.
That's not my, that's not my

835
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,040
prediction, but.
Others believe that it was a

836
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:30,280
just an unknown virus that
caused the epidemic.

837
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:32,520
No specific virus has ever been
identified.

838
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:36,880
The reality is there may just be
a virus that affected millions

839
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:38,680
and we can't explain it.
Viruses.

840
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,760
Are also if you think about it
though, I was listening to a

841
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:46,400
podcast about cancer and how in
my particular family situation

842
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:52,080
we have the Roc Rocca 1 gene
which makes us less able to

843
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:55,440
fight off certain types of
cancer because we already have a

844
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,640
damaged gene sequence.
So it makes me wonder when

845
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:02,320
things like this happen that see
so random and don't make any

846
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:06,600
real logical sense if something
along that line could be true.

847
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,520
However, like you said, with a
cluster, if there's like 12

848
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:13,200
people in the family, it makes
no sense to me that that gene

849
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:15,520
would be triggered all at the
very same moment for all of the

850
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,840
same people because, because
there are environmental factors

851
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:20,760
too.
Because my twin sister and I had

852
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:24,440
a different experience with this
genetic miscoding, if you will,

853
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,280
where I actually received a
cancer experience and she did

854
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,440
not.
And we're identical twins.

855
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:35,080
So if the trigger is the light
switch turning on or off because

856
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:38,520
we both turn 46, then that would
be one thing.

857
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,040
However, with our environmental
factors, whatever that look

858
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,440
like, that may have pushed me
faster.

859
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:46,840
Although, you know, I don't know
what those factors could have

860
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,680
been necessarily.
But I mean, I lived in Utah for

861
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:51,720
longer, so maybe there were
factors there that.

862
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,120
You live by Geneva Steel.
Exactly.

863
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:58,240
And there were five people in my
neighborhood that were diagnosed

864
00:41:58,240 --> 00:42:01,280
with cancer within 2 1/2 weeks
in that neighborhood.

865
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:03,240
So I don't think it's some of it
is a coincidence.

866
00:42:03,240 --> 00:42:06,200
So we have those environment
factors and other sorts of

867
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:07,760
things that may have triggered
it.

868
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,760
But again, we weren't all both
on the same switch at the same

869
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:13,680
moment.
O12O5 OK, time to get a cancer.

870
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,120
Gene, now you have cancer,
right?

871
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:17,240
Right.
Who knows?

872
00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:18,760
It's just one of those things we
don't know.

873
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:21,840
So could it happen again?
Well, they're all just worried

874
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,800
that it could.
The encephalitis encephalitis

875
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:26,760
lethargica epidemic appeared
suddenly.

876
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,400
It spread globally and then it
vanished and only rare cases

877
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,680
appear today, scientists debate
still, could the right virus or

878
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,240
immune trigger or something
caused something similar again?

879
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,000
After all, many neurological
disorders do begin with

880
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,960
infections and seeing the same
parts of the brain being

881
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,040
affected.
And again, I'm sure, like you

882
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,080
had already said, I'm sure that
people with this disease are now

883
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:53,360
diagnosed through Mris and CAT
scans and PET scans maybe or

884
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:55,200
whatever.
But, you know, people probably

885
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,880
thought that after the Spanish
flu or pandemic that another

886
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,720
pandemic would never happen.
And yet, you know, 100 years

887
00:43:01,720 --> 00:43:04,640
later, here we had the
coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic.

888
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:06,400
So could it happen again?
Sure.

889
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:07,960
Will it happen again?
Probably.

890
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,440
It may not look exactly the
same, but that's kind of the

891
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:15,920
nature of viruses in and
bacterial infections in our

892
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:18,560
existence, right?
Like that's just kind of the

893
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,520
course of life.
Well, what makes me kind of

894
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,640
ponder things is when you were
talking about Tourette's like

895
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,360
symptoms or Parkinsonian type
symptoms.

896
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,000
I wonder if any of these things
morphed into that.

897
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,040
I don't know, maybe.
Especially because we don't know

898
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:34,640
what the trigger is.
Was it viral?

899
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,280
Was it bacterial?
We've got proof over time that

900
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,080
even some parkinsonians is not
genetic, but it's more

901
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,160
environmental.
You've got a lot of people from,

902
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,280
say, Southern California or
places that have sprayed a lot

903
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,680
of toxins on their fields.
And the incidence of Parkinson's

904
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,600
and other neurological disorders
are higher potentially because

905
00:43:54,720 --> 00:43:57,680
of the load of those damaging
chemicals.

906
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,520
And I'm thinking about places
that maybe have high metal

907
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:05,000
content in their water or their
surroundings and how that could

908
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,560
have contributed.
They still just don't even know.

909
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,400
Well, and there's been some
evidence, I briefly mentioned it

910
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,000
before, but there's been some,
some evidence autoimmune

911
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,520
disorders of thyroid occur that
kind of in a cluster around

912
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:21,280
Geneva Steel in Vineyard, UT.
And of course, Geneva Steel is

913
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,080
gone now, but those of us that
grew up before it was gone where

914
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,400
it was spouting God knows what
into the into the atmosphere,

915
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:29,880
right like.
And it's just the place we know

916
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:31,280
'cause they're.
Right, That's what I say.

917
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,800
I was thinking about that.
There's Pennsylvania is like

918
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,480
steel USA, right?
It'll be interesting to see if

919
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:38,880
that same pattern.
I just, I'm just talking about

920
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,200
Geneva Steel 'cause it's what
I'm intimately familiar with

921
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:43,200
because I grew up next to Geneva
Steel.

922
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:46,440
And well then you have the work
there exactly.

923
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,360
And then you have the locations
that I believe were in Michigan

924
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:54,920
where their water, yeah, Flint,
MI and those of environmental

925
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,120
factors.
I wonder how that plays.

926
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:01,000
And when you look at these
clusters, and I don't know,

927
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,280
somebody probably already
thought of it because I don't

928
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:05,400
know that I'm especially that
much of A genius.

929
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:09,360
But did they look at where the
environment was?

930
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,680
And I know we talked about
vectors, which are the

931
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:17,400
transmission motors really, and
not in the cars, but in the of

932
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:21,760
the spread of bacteria or
viruses where they're an animal

933
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,360
or they're an item or how it
transfers.

934
00:45:24,720 --> 00:45:27,720
I wonder if there was any real
study on that.

935
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:30,880
But it sort of sounds like if
there was only 1,000,000

936
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:32,880
worldwide.
Well, that sounds like a big

937
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:34,640
number.
That's really hardly anybody.

938
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:36,640
Yeah, well, it's comparison to
the world.

939
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:37,760
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah.

940
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:41,400
But another thing to consider is
that a million people were

941
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:43,920
infected and think about how
many families, family members

942
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:48,640
that impacted even the family of
let's say 3, let's say an only

943
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:50,680
child, which I'm sure not all
the patients were only children.

944
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:52,880
That's that.
Are jumps into 3,000,000 just

945
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,120
impacted?
Yes.

946
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,840
And not definitely not to say
that it didn't impact people in

947
00:45:57,840 --> 00:45:59,920
a very strong way, but when
you're talking.

948
00:45:59,960 --> 00:46:01,800
About I'm not, I'm not
insinuating that's what you're

949
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:03,680
saying.
I'm just saying like it's, well,

950
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:05,960
when you're one of the million
or one of the three million,

951
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,520
it's a big deal.
It is a big deal, for sure.

952
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,680
What I'm wondering, though, is,
as we've talked about in other

953
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:16,120
episodes, was their sample group
big enough to really get a good,

954
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,040
solid look at what could have
been causing it?

955
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,800
And it sounds like not because
it sounds like it was spaced out

956
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:25,680
far enough and it was diverse
enough except for in small

957
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,000
communities that it but I
wonder.

958
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,840
If there was really any
organized coordination back in

959
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:35,440
the early 20s, right, like it
virtually disappeared in around

960
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:37,800
27.
And again, we had these long

961
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:41,920
term patients in that we know
about in New York 60s.

962
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,360
But if it disappeared or or
virtually disappeared in the in

963
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,360
27, then it seems like maybe
people stopped.

964
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:51,000
I'm actually, that's the next
thing I'm going to say is that

965
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,080
this is considered the forgotten
epidemic.

966
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,440
And it's considered the
forgotten epidemic because it's

967
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,320
rarely discussed outside of
neurology and medicine.

968
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:04,160
And again, at its peak, it
affected millions of of people,

969
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:06,880
hospitals filled with patients
trapped between sleep and

970
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,440
wakefulness.
Some died, some recovered, and

971
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,800
some sat motionless for decades,
alive for some time.

972
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:17,000
And so, you know, how much
research has been done into the,

973
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,480
you know, I don't know, I don't
know how much research has been

974
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:22,880
done into it, but I do know that
it's also probably quite

975
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,840
difficult to research something
that went away.

976
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,160
Yeah, and like I say and with
the such the small population

977
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,840
groups, yeah, but it's it would
be interesting to see if there

978
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,560
is anything that it that was the
precursor of anything.

979
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,040
But I don't know how it could be
possible to figure it out

980
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,840
because there is such AI mean
when you're talking a gap of

981
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:44,560
what, 60?
Anyway, a long time.

982
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,760
Remember how we don't math a
full couple of generations where

983
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,400
there probably wasn't anyone
affected?

984
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:57,880
Back again to me thinking that
if they don't have the part of

985
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,080
the illness that they're
sleeping or unconscious and

986
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:03,240
maybe skipped right to a
Parkinsonian sort of

987
00:48:03,240 --> 00:48:06,720
presentation, then would it have
just been put in Parkinsonian

988
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,080
bucket versus the encephalitis
lethargia?

989
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:11,840
I don't know.
This is so fascinating.

990
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:15,800
And in order to study it, you'd
have to have a whole lot more

991
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,280
power behind it than I do.
Yeah, for sure.

992
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,080
So, in closing, encephalitis
lethargica remains 1 of

993
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:23,640
medicine's most haunting
mysteries.

994
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:26,360
A disease that appeared
suddenly, spread around the

995
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,040
world, transformed personalities
and bodies, and then disappeared

996
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,040
without explanation.
It reminds us that even today

997
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,440
there are illnesses we still do
not fully understand.

998
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,240
And somewhere in the history of
medicine, there are stories of

999
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:41,240
patients who waited decades for
a chance to wake up.

1000
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:43,680
Wow, fascinating.
Thank you so much.

1001
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:46,320
You're very welcome.
All right, if you've made it

1002
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:48,920
this far, clearly you like a
little mayhem with your

1003
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,000
medicine.
Or you just enjoy hearing us

1004
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:52,840
ramble about weird medical
mysteries.

1005
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:54,720
Either way, we'd love you for
it.

1006
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:57,640
So hit that follow or subscribe
button wherever you're

1007
00:48:57,640 --> 00:48:59,560
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And toss us a rating or review

1008
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,600
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1009
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:05,240
the show.
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1010
00:49:05,240 --> 00:49:07,360
you out there.
Oh so many.

1011
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:09,760
Come join the chaos.
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1012
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:12,880
Medicine, Mystery, mayhem, and
sometimes Murder.

1013
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:15,960
Do you have an idea for an
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1014
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,280
Just want to say hi?
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1015
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:24,000
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1016
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:30,520
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We read every e-mail, and

1017
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,840
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1018
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:39,040
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1019
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:40,040
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Ep. 35: Wake Up

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