encephalitis

[deleted]

Thanks to templeremus1990 for posting the ID of the illness. Apparently there was a major update just over ten years ago: the causative agent was identified as a bacterium. It was finally identified after noting that several contemporary patients all presented with sore throats, and analysis of charts of patients from the 1920s also showed that most of them had sore throats.

At least logically, this means that a new epidemic could be stopped by antibiotics.

A BBC article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3930727.stm reported on this development. I guess there's still controversy, as the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica has not been updated to reflect this development, though it links to both the BBC article and to a 2010 book, _Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries_ by Molly Caldwell Crosby. OTOH, there's a 2008 article in the Journal of Neurovirology entitled "The relationship between encephalitis lethargica and influenza: A critical analysis". Perhaps it disputes the purported ID.

I've ordered a copy of the book "Asleep". For the Journal of Neurovirology article, I'll have to go to a real medical library. There's one within bicycling distance of me (on the FSU campus) but I'll probably receive the book before I get to the library.

Any way, it's an interesting question.

Edward

"The emergence of encephalitis lethargica (EL), an acute-onset polioencephalitis of unknown etiology as an epidemic in the years 1917-1925 is still unexplainable today. Questioned by the first descriptor of EL himself, Constantin von Economo, there has been much debate shrouding a possible role of the "Spanish" H1N1 influenza A pandemic virus in the development of EL. Previous molecular studies employing conventional PCR for the detection of influenza A virus RNA in archived human brain samples from patients who died of acute EL were negative. However, the clinical and laboratory characteristics of EL and its epidemiology are consistent with an infectious disease, and recently a possible enterovirus cause was investigated."

( From the abstract of: Tappe D, Alquezar-Planas DE. Medical and molecular perspectives into a forgotten epidemic: encephalitis lethargica, viruses, and high-throughput sequencing. J Clin Virol. 2014 Oct;61(2):189-95. doi: 10.1016/j.jcv.2014.07.013. Epub 2014 Jul 30. )