Show WALLY USUALLY FOLLOWS FLU ATTACK A TTA C K surgeon general cummings tells about sleeping sickness washington Washing tom while reports of caseri case of sleeping sickness are reach lug the public health service from various parts of the country surgeon general hugh 8 gumming cumming said that the service had no statistics reliable to warrant a state benr menetia hs to the extent of the disease throughout the united states encephalitis lethar gica or sleeping sickness as it Is popularly known Is reportable by physicians in only comparatively ively few states said the surgeon general in the larger part of the country the only data available based on newspaper reports moreover the disease Is rather easy to confuse with some other diseases and its prevalence Is therefore likely to be unduly magnified magni fled thus in an investigation made by dr 11 F smith of the public health s avice of the 1018 1918 10 19 epidemic 22 per cent of the supposed cases had to be excluded as being really cerebrospinal meningitis cerebral sy phillis brain abscess tuberculosis meningitis poliomyelitis hysteria or e epilepsy pa acute alcoholism 1 1 the disease appears to be only difficultly communicable not a single secondary cose case Is known to have occurred cur red in the immediate familee of tile the priti patents crits reported in 1918 1018 11 10 although some OW persons were exposed the fatality la ft rather high 0 of the cases studied hysmith by smith death death resulted in 40 or 20 per cent it Is interesting though not significant that the peak of the outbreak of 1018 10 was reached in now new york city in january Jn nunry in virginia in february and in louisiana axas and illinois in march in california the largest number of cases reported in any one month was lu april whether this progress was related to the season of the he year or was i irely a 0 result of the spread of the disease Is not known comparison with tho the present spread may throw some light on the subject the disease Is slow in development find long in duration the period of convalescence ts Is variable in some cases recovery Is completed within two weeks after the subsidence of the acute symptoms but in others it Is prolonged and leaves its record on the mind on certain muscles and on the nerves of the cranium the mental troubles however usually pass pasa off eventually the appearance of encephalitis in epidemic form forin has except for one epidemic reported from austria always been followed by an epidemic of influx enza forty six per cent of the cases studied by doctor smith had had influenza and 54 per cent had not the influenza attack rate has been ascribed to the lowering of the vitality of the patients by the influenza but has also beon been explained as being really due to another attack of influenza which has invaded the central nervous system of the body whether or not there Is tiny any connection between the two diseases has not yet been established 11 |