SLEEPY SICKNESS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5147, 4 July 1927, Page 4

SLEEPY SICKNESS.

BAFFLING AND DEADLY DISEASE.

20,000 CASES LAST YEAR.

At the Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System, Maida Vale, London, continuous war is being raged on en-cephalitis-let'hargica, bettor known as “sleepy sickness,” which is proving one of the most baffling and deadly of modern diseases.

The disease is growing with alarming rapidity, and last year, it is estimated, more than 20.000 people; weie affected. The hospital at Maida Vale has the credit of being one of the first two places in Britain to recognise the disease. That was after the Avar. The cause of the disease is attributed to- an organism too minute to be detected by the microscope-. It has been discovered that what were iegarded as post-encephalitis, or secondary, symptoms are really evidence of a chronic form of the disease which has. never readied an acute stage. it is believed, also that there may be some connection between “sleepy sickness” and influenza. The mortality from diseases of the nervous system, of which “sleepy sickness” is the worst, is higher than from tuberculosis and almost as high as from cancer. Young, old, f and middle-aged are equally liable’to attack. One patient at the hospital is a boy of, who, only a few months ago, was an alert pageboy at a London club. He is now a physical wreck, with glassy, staring eyes and open mouth. Another patient is a middle-aged man who has been attending at the hospital since . 1918. Although the doctors have dbne everything in their power, he is becoming steadily worse.