The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1919-03-26
SLEEPY DISEASE
WONT SPREAD
Is OPINION oF SCIENTISTS WHO
HAVE STUDIED IT.
NOT EASILY CON
TAGIOUS.
One Case in Ten ThOUsand-Resuit
OF "F1u"-Most Victims Re
cOver-Deaths Are
Few.

suspend ed at the brink OF death.
Some of them had been in state
of coma Tor days Doctors and
nurses could do little but shake the
patients out of trance-like stupor
and administer medicines and liquid
food neither of which patients
seemed to know they were taking.
They were victims of lethargic
encephalitis, the new disease which
has appeared in widely scattered por-
tions of the United States, first in
Chicago, where now hundreds of ply
sicians are watching every iA person
for signs of what has boen called
"sleep-death."
DR.. John Dill Robertson, Chicago
health commissioner, has begun
systematic campaign to find out waa.
causes the now disease and how best
it may be treated.
Two deaths. both children. have
been reported here Other patients
have recovered, some after foma,n-
ing in I stupor for lays.
Encephalit,s attacks both young
and aged, negro and white, rich and
poor: the we'll nourished and the un-
derfed alike fall into the sleep which
isn't sleep.
II is slightly contagious. some doc
tors insist, while others say hcre is
no danger of contagion.
Five persons were il that death
like stupor at tho Cook county hos
pital, and the physician permitted a
photographer to take picture Of
one woman patient, with her rela-
tives' consent. because, as he said,
il might help to find the solution Of
the cure. He thought everybody
ought to learn about this new dis
ease. SO they might not be unduly
frightened II IL should strike within
their own homes.
The encephalitis patient had been
in stupor several days, She lay
still as death, her breathing scarcely
perceptihle Her face was wax-like.
have seen faces from which life had
fed. and ! was reminded OF them
as ] watched the nurse waken the
patient from her stupor and give
medicine.
For several minutes she shook the
sleeper. talking to her the while. She
did not answer.
Finally her eyes opened, but she
said not a word A twitching muscle
was noticeable. That ended when
the nurse allowed the sick woman
to lay back her head upon the pillow
and resume her sleep.
Medicine given her, the doctor in
formed me. was bitter. but the pa
tient allowed it to trickle down her
throat as she would have so much
tasteless water. 1t was tAe same
with food, the nurse explained: evil
dently the taste nerves are silenced.
"She had influenza last fall. the
doctor said. This followed"
What is this new disease, doc
tori" | asked.
GO and see DR.. Peter Bassoe," he
suggested. "Dr. Bassoe knows more
about it than any other American
physician. He has written d book
on nervous and mental diseases in
which this new disease is exactly de-
fined
DR.. Bassoe is professor of nervous
and mental diseases at Rush Medi-
cal College.
"Eneephalitis, DR.. Bassoe told me,
lis an acute nervous disease II al
fects both sexes, all agesNNnd colors.
1t is not contagious, and is not al
ways fatal. Most cases recover. The
illness may last few days, and in
stances are known where patients
were in a stupor for two months.
Don't mistake it for the so-called
sleeping sickness of Africa. 1t is not
caused by the bite of the tsetse fly.
There is a world of difference.
"Encephalitis follows influenza. II
is a winter and spring disease, and
will probably affect one in ten thou
sand persons who had influenza. II
may attack those who had light at
tacks of Influenza as well as those
more severely i'll II followed III
\ fiuenza here eighteen years ago but
was diagnosed as a form of menin-
gifts. In Europe then it was called
mona. and there followed influenza
epidemics
Under the name 'encephalitis'
the disease has been known only
since early in 1917, when it appeared
in Vienna. and the celebrated Aus