The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-03-22
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information, Bureau
FREDERIC J. HASKIN. Director.
Washington. d. C.
EPIDEMIC MYSTERIES.

y
sleeping sickness; and the other is
that common and heretofore insignifi-
cant maIady, known as hiccups. At
least, so they are called, but neither
is running true to type.
For the sleeping sickness. which is
now so prevalent in New York, is not
the same as the famous sleeping sick
| ness of Africa, the cause of which is
we'll understood. Nor is the present
epidemic of hiccups in any way related,
to those gentle attacks, occasionally
cially since the pocket flask has be-
come SO popular. The new hiccups
are singularly malignant and persist
ent, and are not at all humorous.
They attack their victim every few
seconds during the day. and are not
breaths, drinks of water, chunks of
bread. and other we'll known devices.
Sometimes a hiccup spasm lasts for
over an hour. and the hiccup series
extends for weeks at a stretch.
Both epidemics affecting hundreds
| of persons, have completely baffIed
| New York medical men, and all other
medical men, for that matter. No one
| has been able to discover how or
whence they came; what to do for
them while here, or how to get rid of
them. From the great medical re-
search laboratories of the city, such
as that of the Rockefeller Foundation,
have come various theories as to their
cause, none of which has proved con-
vincing.
The most interesting one recently
advanced is that the two Affections
are in some mysterious and subtle way
connected-that prolonged attacks of
| hiccups are merely one of the many
/ irritating symptoms of sleeping sick
ness; yet this is by no means unani-
mously accepted.
| The only fact accepted without chal-
lenge concerning encephalitis lethar-
gina, which is s.s-'s impressive scien
| t1fic name, is that it does not spring
| from the same cause as the African
| malady of the same name. The latter
| IS known to be produced by the bite
| of the tsetse fly, whose chief diet is
| the blood of the crocodile. I'm drink
ling the crocodile's BLOOD according
to an official of the New York health
| department., the tsetse fly imbibes
the lazy bug lurking therein. The lazy
! bug doesn't do the crocodile any
harm, and it doesn't do the tsetse fly
| any harm. but when the said unpro-
, nounceable fly injects the lazy bug
into horses and cattle it kills them off
by the thousands, and it does the same
thing to humans especially the black
| ones. In three years, its deadly bite
killed 100000 natives in one African
province
A New Disease.
But the new sleeping sickness, not
more than two years old. must be
something entirely different, because
We have no tsetse flies in this part OF
the world, and the only crocodiles
about New York are kept behind a
glass window in the zoo. Still, E.
Lethargina must have a cause, and
the medical profession is striving gal
lantly to supply it. Some of it's mem
bers firmly believe that it is merely
an after-effect of influenza, but this
does not help much, because the in
4 fluenza germ remains to be identified.
i Besides this, many others among the
(. profession are equally certain that in
fluenza has nothing to do with the
new aff1iction.
at is a fact that many of our sleep
ing sickness patients shave had in
fluenza," declares DIR. Josephine B.
Neal of the research department of the
Willard Park hospital here. but we
must remember that a large part of
the population of this city has been
afflicted by the last epidemic of nearly
three years duration. So you see that
it is only to be expected that among
sleeping sickness patients there will be
a certain percentage who have had
Influenza
} Another theory which attracted
much attention for a brief period was
to the effect that the disease was the
same as infantile paralysis. The Symp-
toms, it was pointed out, were greatly
alike, in spite of the fact that they
were also like the symptoms of ty-
phoid fever Just as the bewildered
layman laid aside one statement in the
t pleasant belief that the mystery had
been solved, along came another from
some other authority, asserting that
sleeping sickness was not the slight
. est bit similar to infantile paralysis
, that one was a disease of the brain
and the other disease of the spine.
: Never have doctors disagreed more
widely. Not only do they disagree as
to the cause of the sleeping sickness
but they disagree as to its symptoms
At first, it seemed to be generally ac-
cepted that the symptoms were
dropping eyelids, stupor, unconscious
ness of surroundings headache, and
| in extreme cases, coma, delirium and
vomiting: A few instances coming
before the publics attention seemed
to corroborate this. A couple of vic
Tins were picked up sound asleep ir
subway trains, and, upon refusing tc
. be wakened were carried to the near.
est hospitals. where they were at once
diagnosed as sleeping sickness pa
tients. A prominent city official. q
university professor, and nearly 800
other New Workers fell into the same
state. More and more are continuing
. to drop off into coma or unconscious
/. ness all the time, altho it is expected
that the epidemic will rapidly decline
with the approach of spring.
Sleepiness, drows;ness. then, are th'
:, chief symptoms of the disease, which
l Dr. Osler has described as " q diffust
inflammation of the brain substance
Yet recently we have also been in
I formed that sleeping sickness may no
: be sleepy at all. but may produce al
extremely wakeful state, in which tbs
: patient is feverish and restless.
! The Hiccup Plague.
1 1t is ali very bewildering. even t.
e the doctor, and now comes the hiccuI
r epidemic to complicate matters. Ar,
: hiccups a part of the restless aspec
e of sleeping sickness. or are they {
t manifestation of some new and indie
i pendent germ, working on its own er
Y ratio course2 No one knows. w
y do know that cases of sustained hic
] cups have suddenly sprung up boil
o in Europe and in this country, an,
y | that sometimes they accur alone an