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Show SLEEPING SICKNESS AN OLD DISEASE, JAYSFpEIT Contagious, and Victim Are Not Always Drowsy, but May Be Delirious NEW YORK. March XI. Sleeptn sickness sick-ness 1 communicable and tha many forms of the dlseaae art due to a mlorobe, aid Pr. Himon Flexner of the Rockefeller Rockefel-ler Inrtitute, lecturing; on the alment In the N w York Infirmary for women and children 311 Kn.t Fifteenth street. It in not correct to call the disease let harp it encephalitis." he Bid. since It f rj y of nt '''Titty the deep wakefulness, restlessress und drllnutn. Because of t variable covrM. Ir. Flex nor s u k e t d ; ha t It L na m ed 'epidemic encephalitis,'' "I fn oniy hope," hes aid, "to irlv an account of the disease which will fairly summarise our present knowledge of it, particularly in Its pathological relations. re-lations. When a new disease In an-no an-no u need feeling a hour ft ta csnnlly of 1 two kind. On the one hand there ia J skepticism and on the other fear and a llttlo panic because the physician who handles a case never ha had one be- , fore. "It i a fair assumption that there ! no such thin as w cliieac. ttkJewt there has no discovery or a new diseaso in modern t:irvn. H'eeptna: slck-nnm slck-nnm U no', new in the vnpo that the world is twin introduced t it; It ia rew In tha ifnd that it in beinic Introduced Into this country. Historically the disease dis-ease la old, Juat now old It ia difficult to say. HARD TO TRACE ITS AOK. "The difficulty in animating- l.s are . arises from the on In landing; symptom- coma, coma Ik common to many diseases and in KO'"(T ba k to the great outbreaks of lcknes In the uut U la difficult to atnffi out fitni from sleeping aickneaa and coma from something sine. "An epidemic of sleeping sickness prevailed pre-vailed In 1712 In Germany. The next evidence evi-dence of Ita epid. mic form wu in HSO when It broke out on the borderland be- rwren Italy and Austria and Mffl fin two years. The present crop of sleeping slrknrfui came Into te'ns; in near Vienna. By 1U It hd not Into France knd Knipland and esrly in !< it came here and we have had It ever s'.nce. "It is eventially a disens of the central cen-tral nervous system. There a eome-thinjr eome-thinjr atout diseases of thin sy.tem which muke them especially complicated. In ..Hee'iinr sickness the amptouii appear according to which psrt of the nervous v stern is attacked. The dtwase Is not always accompaniod bv deep slumber; It in not always letharsic. Often the pa-timt pa-timt ! retl?.i, nianlucRl and delirious. "While the manifestations may viry. It highly probable that they are due to one me. It surely Is due to a micro-rcenism micro-rcenism that is, it is infecttr.uf . 'There ha been fome lncrea in the lsst few weeks, hofii here ri Ktirosd, hut ir hns not been treat. Thi ts the period pe-riod when it is due to prevail; It is a midwinter ailment. Ton f to think of It ss a mlcro-orcan!sm tn.i'. sets up all Inflammation in the brain usually at the third ventricle. No one haa yet aeen thia micro-orranlsm. CAUSE OF SLEEP MYSTERY. "What causes the patient's sleep? There is no reason to believe In the brrit of the studies so far carried out that It la caused by poison In the blood, a toxin produced by the disease. It seems i more probable to attribute the slumber " to mechanical cattfes. to cells which are carried to the on tic mechanism, shut-tins shut-tins out Hftht and Inducing; the pre -re. , qutsitea for sleep." rr. Flex rer characterised the sleep malady as the second of a arent epidemic of nervous diseases, the ft rat havlnn been poliomyelitis or Infantile peralysia In a discussion of enceohalltta and kindred kind-red nerve comnutlnts. Ir. CTesnor spoke of the "Australian disease." a mysterious malady which appeared In 1917 in Queenslsnd. New South Wales and Victoria, Vic-toria, the eastern seaboard of Atmtralla. He said that It was a destructive dfs-eajMt dfs-eajMt the mortslitv averaging; 70 per cent. It first was thought to be a vtmlent form of poliomyelitis: but tests disclosed that It attacked the brain tiitead of the spinal ro-d snnwwnatt sffwn- the fashion of "wjlthnrite enuvoftaalttfc:' ATtir nlbe ledtirre a new bulldlna: In-cresstnrr In-cresstnrr the facilities of the women's Infirmary In-firmary was opened by the board ot trustees. |