The Sleeping Sickness Epidemic (1919-1930)

Summary

Morbid Podcast: Episode Summary

The Sleeping Sickness Epidemic (1919–1930)

Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Date: January 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ash and Alaina take a deep dive into the mysterious and often overlooked Sleeping Sickness epidemic (Encephalitis Lethargica) that swept across the globe in the early 20th century, particularly between 1919 and 1930. Known for its bizarre and terrifying symptoms—including prolonged sleep, catatonia, and mask-like expressions—the disease remains shrouded in mystery to this day, with its cause still unknown. The hosts deliver a mix of detailed medical history, chilling case studies, and their signature blend of comedic banter and empathetic commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Post-Holiday Catch-up & Jazz Rituals

• Ash and Alaina chat about social hangovers and finding joy in small routines (03:03–08:57).
• Elaina’s “Gatsby jazz” morning routine: “Get an old timey blue radio looking Bluetooth speaker, then you're really in it. And that shit will change your life…” (06:00)
• Both discuss romanticizing daily life to combat the heaviness of the world.

2. Introducing Encephalitis Lethargica

• The disease isn’t true crime, but checks all the “morbid” boxes—creepy history with an unsolved mystery (09:04).
• Known as sleeping sickness, it caused catatonia, “mask-like expressions of horror,” and hypersomnia (stunningly deep sleep) (09:22).
• Referred to as “the grandmother” or “La Nona,” it was both culturally eerie and medically baffling.

3. Early Outbreaks and Key Figures

• Dr. Constantine von Economo (Vienna) and Dr. René Croissher (Paris) identified and treated early cases, initially mistaking them for battle fatigue, influenza, or PTSD (10:40–13:38).
• Bizarre, varied symptoms included:
  • Hypersomnia (sleeping for days/weeks)
  • Catatonia with mask-like facial expressions
  • Epidemic hiccuping (one death recorded)
  • Verbal tics, twitching, compulsive behaviors (16:18–17:20)
• Only common thread: overwhelming, irresistible need to sleep.

4. Disease Course and Symptoms

• Acute phase: Dramatic symptoms, sometimes progressing rapidly and unpredictably.
• Chronic phase: Sometimes Parkinsonian symptoms, catatonia, or post-encephalitic states lasting for decades (18:38).
• Elena: “It was like the disease was developing new symptoms as it progressed. Yeah, but with no explanation whatsoever.” (17:41)

5. Historical Spread, Diagnostic Mysteries, and Public Response

• Wartime conditions (WWI) acted as a “perfect environment” for spreading unknown illnesses (13:01–14:43).
• Disease spread from Europe to England and the U.S., causing fear—but often overshadowed by the Spanish Flu (26:34–27:45).
• Local authorities, in denial or under-informed, issued misleading public statements:
  • “San Francisco need have no fear of the sleeping sickness… it is well established that the sleeping sickness is carried by the tsetse fly and occasionally by other insects found in Africa…” (40:15–40:45)
  • Alaina: “San Francisco health officials were wrong on literally every point…” (40:56)

6. Memorable & Haunting Case Studies

• Ruth (NY, 1919): 16-year-old girl, acute onset with finger pain, rapid progression to paralysis, catatonic sleep for two months, then death after fever spike (32:52–36:11).
  • “Among the things that puzzled Tilney the most was the fact that although she appeared to be asleep... she was able to respond to simple commands.” (34:32)
• Other presentations:
  • Falling asleep with eyes open and “expressionless faces, free of terror and pain…” (14:04)
  • Delirium, euphoria, patients jumping around at night like toys, patients rambling incoherently or stuck in horror-mask paralyzation. (28:57–30:24)

7. Public Health Reaction and Diagnostic Difficulties

• Denial and confusion from health officials—statements downplaying severity or shifting blame to foreign sources (40:31–44:16).
• Difficulty tracking the true scale, as symptoms overlapped with flu or psychiatric disorders.

8. Theories, Research, and Legacy

• Attempts to link sleeping sickness to influenza or malaria largely debunked by studies (45:54–46:58).
• Encephalitis Lethargica played a significant role in medical discovery:
  • Von Economo hypothesized and identified the hypothalamus’s role in sleep, hunger, temperature—fundamental neurology breakthroughs (24:59–25:00).
• Disease ultimately just faded away without explanation. Occasional, exceedingly rare cases still reported today (47:30–51:00).
• Alaina: “As for the cause of this sleeping sickness, they still don't know to this day…2026, we still have no clue.” (50:45)

9. Aftermath and Modern Insights

• Most survivors profoundly changed—trapped in comas or left with Parkinsonism, tics, or catatonia (48:20–48:44).
• Notable late case: Philip Leather, child prodigy, spent seven decades in a “trance-like state” before dying in 2002. Brain autopsy provided no definitive answers (49:45–50:32).
• Oliver Sacks’s work with L-Dopa in the late 1960s brought some relief to survivors, but with only temporary success.

10. Lingering Questions and Speculation

• Was it viral, autoimmune, environmental, or a combination?
  • Theories include environmental toxins, food or product contamination, or an unusual virus.
• Disease affected all age groups, with no clear pattern.
• Ash: “I feel like we should really continue looking into this, though, so that this doesn't happen again. Let's figure this out. Guys…” (53:03–53:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Elaina: “Every day is a fucking event. All right? We live in a hellscape… romanticize the little moments.” (07:26)
• Ash: “It kind of sounds like Covid.” (13:39)
• Elaina: “Like, their strange symptoms... they never hit two people the same way.” (13:38)
• Ash, on the epidemic’s disappearance: “Which is so strange… because they didn't know what precautions… so where did it go?” (47:30)
• Alaina: “Cases occasionally pop up from time to time. …But they're super rare. Like exceedingly rare.” (50:43)
• Ash: “If you guys ever want us to cover something… medical things that you would just love to hear a discussion about… throw it our way.” (55:15)

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Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• 03:03–08:57 — Opening banter, routines, and romanticizing life
• 09:04–09:59 — Introducing encephalitis lethargica / sleeping sickness
• 10:40–13:38 — Early outbreaks: Drs. von Economo & Croissher
• 13:39–18:38 — Disease progression and bizarre symptoms
• 24:59–25:00 — Von Economo’s neurology breakthrough (hypothalamus)
• 26:34–27:45 — Scale of epidemic and comparison to Spanish Flu
• 32:52–36:11 — The case of Ruth: harrowing symptoms and death
• 40:15–44:16 — Public denial and misinformation
• 47:30–51:00 — The epidemic fades away / modern cases and lasting mystery

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, humorous, and warm—even when discussing dark history.
• Blunt honesty about the nightmarish qualities of the illness.
• Empathy and incredulity for victims of the disease, paired with curiosity.
• Frequent relatable asides, pop culture references (e.g., The Ring, Harry Potter, Spongebob), and upbeat digressions.

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Final Thoughts

Ash and Alaina deliver a rare historical medical mystery in their signature accessible yet thorough style, leaving listeners both haunted and fascinated. The episode highlights humanity’s vulnerability in the face of medical unknowns—and the importance of curiosity, compassion, and collective memory.

Closing Musings:

• The need for more research and speculation about environmental factors.
• Encouragement for listener submissions for quirky, morbid history topics.
• A final “weird fact”: “Pothole” is a redundant term—it means “whole hole.” (55:32)

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For those who skipped the episode:
This review covers the little-known epidemic that left thousands dead or altered for life, baffled science, and helped fuel decades of neurology research. Its causes remain a mystery, and every now and then, a chillingly similar case emerges—leaving us to wonder if we’ve truly seen the last of “The Sleeping Sickness.”

Transcript

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Ash]

Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.

[Elena]

And I'm Elena.

[Ash]

And this is morbid.

[Elena]

This is morbid.

[Ash]

Yeah. What are you correcting me? Yeah. What are you correcting me?

[Elena]

Yeah, it's mo.

[Ash]

Beyond.

[Elena]

It's morbid.

[Ash]

He said.

[Elena]

No, it's just.

[Ash]

I'm, like, over tired today.

[Elena]

I know. You're a little off. Feels.

[Ash]

No, I'm like. I'm happy. I'm just. I did so many social things this weekend, and I'm usually not like that social of a gal.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And I socialed so hard. Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday, and then social.

[Elena]

Too close to the sun. Yeah.

[Ash]

I didn't feel well when I woke up this morning because my body said, what the were you doing this weekend?

[Elena]

Like, calm down.

[Ash]

My body said, lie down. I said, I have to go to work.

[Elena]

I must record.

[Ash]

I have to.

[Elena]

Yeah. I didn't. I didn't do crazy amount of socializing.

[Ash]

No, we did your birthday dinner.

[Elena]

Birthday dinner. Surprise birthday dinner.

[Ash]

I. John was planning that for, like, weeks, and I worked with you that whole day. And I literally, as I was leaving, almost went, all right, see you tonight. And then I could have ruined the.

[Elena]

Whole thing, but I didn't because I had no idea. Because I got sick on my birthday. So apparent. It was apparently scheduled for. For that weekend, but had to be pushed.

[Ash]

It was the day that I forced you to go to urgent care.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And I was like, guess we're not going to dinner tonight because you're going to urgent care.

[Elena]

Exactly. You will be at urgent care.

[Ash]

Probably for a while.

[Elena]

But yeah. So that was great.

[Ash]

It was really sweet. John had like this whole menu put together and he wrote, witches never age.

[Elena]

Yeah, he's such a sweetie.

[Ash]

And Elena thought I did that. I said, I didn't even do that.

[Elena]

I did. And then John was like, no, I didn't.

[Ash]

I said, I just texted a few people and said, can you make it?

[Elena]

Can you make it?

[Ash]

Can you come?

[Elena]

Since we've had to change it 100 times. Yeah, no, it was great. It was wonderful. It was exactly what I wanted.

[Ash]

I'm glad.

[Elena]

My favorite restaurant with your favorite people? With my favorite people.

[Ash]

Most of them.

[Elena]

Most of them, yeah. With some of my favorite people. Yeah. I will say yeah. But yeah. So, you know, I think I'm 2026. I'm liking it. Feels like a time.

[Ash]

I'm loving it so far.

[Elena]

I'm loving it.

[Ash]

2026.

[Elena]

I'm just trying to. Oh, I have a hack for you.

[Ash]

Tell me, have you said this to me yet?

[Elena]

I have not. So I wanted. This is a hack for everybody in the room and listening because I've tried it. I wanted to try it a few times to see if it actually made a difference. So I've been trying to slowly wake up earlier because you know, you fall out of it during the holidays and all that. Everything gets all fully out of it. So I've been trying to wake up even earlier because I like to wake up before the house wakes up so I can have my quiet time, get some shit done. And now when I wake up, I got myself. I got it on Amazon. It's just like a Bluetooth speaker that looks like an old timey radio. And I play slow Gatsby esque jazz in the morning while I make my coffee, while I open the shades, listen to you while I get stuff ready for breakfast. I play slow Gatsby esque jazz. That's. I made a playlist.

[Ash]

I don't do that in the morning. I do that at night when I cook dinner.

[Elena]

See, I recommend it for a lot of times.

[Ash]

Yeah. I love it for dinner because it's like your day is slowing down, you're unwinding. It kind of like romanticizes your dinner.

[Elena]

Making. That is exactly what I was gonna say. So I started doing that and it re. What a nice way to wake up. Cause you're not listening to someone talk at ya. I love a podcast. I love it.

[Ash]

I do too.

[Elena]

But sometimes when I first wake up, I need like a moment before any voices are really like telling me things. Yeah. And so this is like no voices until they start singing about some love or something. There you go. But it's like I don't. It just like eases you into the day and it makes it feel a little more like special and like romanticized. That's great. Waking up, like when you open the shades and everything, you feel like you're making your coffee. It's a little more of an event. Yeah. And when you, I'm telling you, get an old timey blue radio looking Bluetooth speaker, then you're really in it. And that shit will change your life because you put it in the kitchen.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So when you turn it on, it feels like it's coming out of an old timey radio and you just feel like you're transported.

[Ash]

It feels like the 50s, but like you can have a credit card.

[Elena]

And also if you're meal planning or you're like cooking dinner, you're getting lunches ready for the kids, put on some slow old timey jazz. I'm telling you, it'll romanticize the moment.

[Ash]

And I even pour like whatever I'm drinking into like a pretty glass.

[Elena]

Yes, me too.

[Ash]

Because that, especially when I'm cooking dinner.

[Elena]

Use the pretty glasses.

[Ash]

Use the pretty glasses.

[Elena]

Yeah. One thing I'm doing this year that I've been seeing everywhere and I'll even. I'll post my playlist that I made for slow time because I was very serious about the ones that I picked. Cause I didn't want any like outliers here. I want strictly slow old timey Gatsby S. Jazz.

[Ash]

Is that. What did you name the playlist?

[Elena]

I think I literally got. I'm going to see what I named it because I'll. I'll. I'll put it up on my Instagram for anybody who feels like they.

[Ash]

Alina's Rex.

[Elena]

It's called Morning Soft Gatsby Jazz.

[Ash]

Oh, bitch.

[Elena]

Love it. And it's a little.

[Ash]

It hits a little harder.

[Elena]

It does, it does. And it, it's only got a few songs on it, but that's enough. Because it's just for little things that you're doing.

[Ash]

It's just for the morning.

[Elena]

Use the fancy glass. Wear the fancy thing. Yeah. Because you might. You know what? If you're dead tomorrow, you could. You didn't wear the fancy thing.

[Ash]

Could literally die.

[Elena]

Don't save shit. What are you saving it for?

[Ash]

For what?

[Elena]

Don't save it. Every day is a fucking event. All right?

[Ash]

You're live.

[Elena]

We live in a hellscape. Let's just. Every day is a goddamn event that you get. You get excited for. So let's make everything romantic and a big deal and hot. It really does change things when you.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Romanticizing little moments. Yeah. If you can bring yourself to slowly do it, I promise you it'll make a difference.

[Ash]

Yeah, it does.

[Elena]

And you don't have to do anything crazy. Just little, little things.

[Ash]

Do you know what I've been doing? I'm a nighttime shower girly most of the time. Sometimes. Well, sometimes I do the morning, but lately I've just been doing it at night. And I turn off all the lights lately and I put in my candle warmer and I play spa music.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And that is a nice way to end.

[Elena]

Honestly. Yeah.

[Ash]

Because you go from the soft jazz, Soft nighttime jazz of dinner with your fancy drink. And then you get into the show and you're spying and actually my aura ring has told me, like, whatever the you're doing, keep it up.

[Elena]

Really?

[Ash]

Yeah. Because it's like my heart rate is better at night or something. Like, they're like, did you do something before bed last night?

[Elena]

What's going on? Yeah. Like killing it. Yeah. So see, little. Little tips.

[Ash]

Yep. That's how you should do your day.

[Elena]

Because I think everybody needs little tips right now on how to be happy and fancy free.

[Ash]

Like, ease into the new year.

[Elena]

And I'm. I'm trying. So I'm going to share whatever works for me.

[Ash]

We're out here.

[Elena]

But yeah. So that's my thing. Cool. But, you know, speaking of Gatsby s Jazz, we're going to be in the early 1900s.

[Ash]

There you go.

[Elena]

During this. Perfect. From Gatsby as jazz to an epidemic.

[Ash]

Great.

[Elena]

So we. This is an interesting one. It's. This is a little different. Okay. It's not true crime, but it's interesting history and, like, bizarre history. And it's got a mystery with it.

[Ash]

Ooh, I love history.

[Elena]

Mystery.

[Ash]

You know, Listen to you over there romanticizing your topics.

[Elena]

That's right. This. I think this one's really. This one fascinated me because this particular illness, where it was once called the sleeping sickness, it has a lot of wild symptoms that come along with it. Like I'll mention at some point, one of it is like, just to really like Legion here. One of the symptoms that would happen is like you would go catatonic and then your face would freeze in a look of horror. Oh, my God. And just freeze. And you couldn't. It was like the ring, how they look like, ah. Like your face would just be stuck that way.

[Ash]

Or like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

[Elena]

Yes. Yeah. Like that was real.

[Ash]

Damn.

[Elena]

Yeah. So let's get into it.

[Ash]

Tell me everything.

[Elena]

Let's get into it. I think this was also called, like. And we'll mention it again, it was called different things when it first came up because people didn't know what the fuck this was and still don't really understand what it was or is. And at one point I think it was called like the grandmother, like the Nona, because it was like, that's it.

[Ash]

She's just the grandmother.

[Elena]

Because it was like a sleeping disease. Like it was. It's so crazy.

[Ash]

She's been stricken with the grandmother.

[Elena]

With the grandmother.

[Ash]

The nonna.

[Elena]

The nonna. So let's begin in 1916, shall we?

[Ash]

Let's do it.

[Elena]

So there was, you know, a war was raging across Europe and Dr. Constantine von Economo, him. Yep. Another Von.

[Ash]

Love a Vaughn.

[Elena]

Got some Vons.

[Ash]

Do I love this bomb.

[Elena]

He had become pretty used to treating men with a variety of maladies at his psychiatric clinic at the University of Vienna. It was a pretty normal thing at this point because there was a war raging. The war really ushered in a new era of technological advances in weaponry. And these weapons that were now being like advancing so far were capable of causing mass destruction and also leaving witnesses to that destruction super psychologically damaged in their wake. There was a whole new host of issues that people were dealing with. And as a result, Von Economo and medical professionals like him really came to know and recognized the symptoms of delirium. Shock, shock, ptsd. These were all very common in soldiers that they were seeing.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Several years into the war, Dr. Von Economo had become accustomed to seeing all manner of not just psychological illnesses, but injuries, like physical injuries. You know, they were coming from, like the horrific effects of mustard gas, of chlorine gas, you know, disfiguring damage from artillery shells. It was really bad. Yeah. But the cases that really interested him the most were the epidemic illnesses like typhus, cholera, influenza. Because there weren't just physical Dangers of battle or psychological dangers. The conditions on the actual battlefield, like the cold, the wet, the dirty, the wet, you know, and the conditions of the soldiers themselves. Being malnourished, highly stressed, mostly injured, dealing with all this shit. It was ideal for contracting and spreading a lot of infectious diseases.

[Ash]

Makes sense, though.

[Elena]

These illnesses weren't as obvious. They were definitely not less devastating among the soldiers. And they spread like wildfire because they're.

[Ash]

In such close quarters. Oh, yeah.

[Elena]

And they're just on. Yeah, they're on top of each other. And they're all just being, like, switched. Switched out all the time.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And the entire wings of hospitals would be dedicated to their treatment at times. Now, we're talking today about a disease that's called encephalitis lethargica.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

It's kind of unknown where it first appeared. The epidemic of the early 20th century is thought to have started in 1915, Romania. But more recent studies of this disease have thought that, like, maybe something called the English sweats, it was referred to, might have been similar to this. And maybe that was the first thought of it, like. Of it or whatever. But it's really hard to pinpoint because as we'll come to see during this, this has so many varying symptoms, and they're so weird.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Like, they're strange symptoms, and they never. It like, doesn't hit two people the same way.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

It's very strange.

[Ash]

Kind of sounds like Covid.

[Elena]

It is. It's really scary. Now, the first documented cases of the disease appeared in 1916 at von Economos Clinic in Vienna and at the Paris clinic of Dr. Rene Croucher. @ Croucher's clinic, men started arriving from the front lines with just a variety of symptoms that they were easily identifiable, but they didn't really comprise together like a single.

[Ash]

Diagnosis.

[Elena]

Okay. By themselves, you could be like, okay, that's that. That's that. But altogether it was like, what the fuck is this? According to author Molly Caldwell Crosby, quote, some had fever, others did not. Most complained of headache and nausea. Strangest of all was how much these soldiers slept. Now, it makes sense that a person who gets, you know, the flu or a flu like thing, as these guys were, would probably, you know, want to. And need to sleep for longer periods than someone who's healthy. But there was something, like very unnerving about these particular patients. Not just the amount of time that they were sleeping, but also the way that they looked. Okay. Crosby said it would have seemed almost serene at first. Their blank, expressionless faces, free of terror and pain. But over time, they would fall asleep and stay that way for days or sometimes weeks. What the fuck? And then sometimes they would never wake up. Oh, yeah. Now, in Vienna, Dr. Von Economo was seeing, like, a similar strange combination of symptoms in his own patients that were coming from the front lines like soldiers. In January 1917, a man arrived at the clinic complaining of exhaustion, confusion, and headaches. And he sat in front of the doctor, and he said that he was, like. As he sat in front of him, he was struggling not just to stay upright, but just to stay awake. He, like, couldn't even stay awake to sit and talk to him. He slumped in his chair. His head was, like, lolling around from side to side, and he numerous times completely nodded off while he was talking to the doctor. And he said every time the man fell asleep, Von Economo could rouse him, but never to full consciousness. He said he was more like someone who had been woken from a deep sleep and is only vaguely aware that they're no longer.

[Ash]

Sleeping. Oh, that's.

[Elena]

Weird. And by that point, Von Economo had seen this type of exhaustion in, you know, a small number of patients who, again, had come from the front lines of war. But this person was a civilian. Oh, so now he's like, now we're spreading. Yeah. So the early cases documented by Von Economo and Croucher were baffling both of them. This illness seemed to have, like, similarities to influenza, which was very rampant at the time, but it lacked a lot of the defining characteristics of flu. And more strange was the fact that among the small number of people who did present with encephalitis lethargica, there was, again, just the widest variety of symptoms. The best Von Economo could tell was that they appeared to be suffering from encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain tissue. But there was no explanation for that swelling. Like, there was no evidence of head trauma, no other injury that could really account for it. And also, while some of the symptoms matched a typical case of encephalitis, which is like fever, headaches, confusion, there were others that were not associated with encephalitis at all. Weird. Yeah. So as the weeks go by, Von Economos started noticing new symptoms in his patients, including one epidemic of hiccuping that resulted in one death. Yes, you heard that correct. An epidemic of hiccuping where one person died. What the fuck?

[Ash]

Yeah. Of they died of.

[Elena]

Hiccuping. Yeah. Which sounds like the worst kind of death imaginable. Yeah. Think of how Awful it is when you start getting the hiccups and you're.

[Ash]

Like. You get one hiccup and you're like, get it.

[Elena]

Gone. Like, I'm like, give me honey, Someone scare.

[Ash]

Me. I'm holding my.

[Elena]

Breath. Holy shit. Like, that's.

[Ash]

Awful. Yeah, no, it's. It's the.

[Elena]

Worst. Well, and then other patients started exhibiting even stranger symptoms like compulsive verbal tics, uncontrollable blinking, involuntary muscle twitching, uncontrolled salivation, and a small number of people who, quote, froze, still in a catatonic state. It was like the disease was developing new symptoms as it progressed. Yeah, but with no explanation whatsoever. And while these patients had a lot of symptoms in common, the only symptom shared by all of them was hypersomnia. Okay, so other than that, it was like they all had hypersomnia. The rest of the whole skew of different. But then they had a ton of shit that was just outside now. In time, Von Economo and Cruschet, who still had not compared notes at this point because they're in two different places, they recognized a pattern in the clinical presentation of encephalitis lethargica. Like the more common form of, you know, encephalitis. The disease affected patients in two phases. It was acute and a chronic phase. The acute phase, you know, that had dramatic symptoms like excessive sleep, eye twitching, movement disorders. Those common symptoms, though, were often accompanied by less common symptoms. And these less common symptoms almost felt like they, like, came and went day to day, like they kind of appeared one day and went the other. And yeah, for obvious reasons, the chronic phase of the disease took a lot longer to identify and could present months or even years later. And they would sometimes present in the form of Parkinsonian like signs. Oh.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

Habits.

[Ash]

Literally. For January only, every core you order is doubled. Order a pack, you get two. Order three, you get six. On top of that, when you grab a journey pack, you'll also get a free gift just for using my code. Morbid but double cores offers disappear the moment January ends. No extensions. No exceptions. So jump on this now. Don't wait head to try fume.com that's T R Y F U M dot com and use code morbid to claim your double cores and your free gift before this new year offer closes for good. If your idea of a good night is getting lost in a dark documentary, a twisted true crime series, or a wild mystery, you can't stop watching, Philo is your next obsession. Philo offers an accessible way to stream live and on demand TV with one simple affordable subscription. For just $33 a month you can get over 70 channels plus access to HBO Max Basic. With ads, AMC plus and Discovery plus you can stream stand out new offers like the Pit, welcome to Derry, Sinners, Flight Risk and the Secret Order. True crime fans can dive into the cult of the Real Housewife, American Monster and the Murder Tapes. With unlimited DVR and the ability to skip ads, Philo makes it easy to catch all the cults, thrillers and mysteries you love. HBO Max is also the place for blockbuster movies that complement Philo's must see tv. There's no contract, so you can cancel anytime, but with all this to stream, you probably won't want to. Philo is where all the best TV comes together. Sign up now at Philo.

[Elena]

Tv. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a [e-mail] Switch limited.

[Olivia]

Time 50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy see.

[Elena]

Terms. So at their respective clinics, both doctors are just like diving and pouring into medical literature, just trying to find anything that could figure out. Because they're also having trouble treating these people too, right? Just finding anything that resembled what they were seeing. First in soldiers returning from the front lines and then in civilians. But von Economo recalled hearing stories of a similar plague that had affected parts of Italy in the late 19th century. According to the stories, apparently peasants in a small village in rural Italy started falling into coma like sleep and a lot of them never woke up. And those who did wake up were not the same as they were from before. Oh, these people called the disease La Nona, the grandmother, La Nona, la.

[Ash]

Nona. But I don't think I'll ever be over a disease being called the grandmother. That sounds like a horror.

[Elena]

Movie. The grandmother, the grandma. But in the surrounding towns and villages, those who had symptoms were referred to as the living dead. Oh, yeah. Spooky. According to Crosby, this was the first time that doctors had considered whether the strange sleeping sickness could be related to the outbreak of influenza that was occurring at the time. Okay. Now, based on those theories, Von Economos started developing his own theory that these strange symptoms he was seeing in his Encephalitis Lethargica patients could maybe be a reaction to exposure to.

[Ash]

Influenza.

[Elena]

Right. In April 1917, he gathered all his notes and observation and published a manuscript appropriately titled Encephalitis Lethargica. Coincidentally, just. And this is total coincidence, just a few days later, Rene Croucher published his own paper on the case in Paris. Yeah, like, they were both, like, on the.

[Ash]

Case.

[Elena]

Yeah. These two manuscripts were the first to formally identify the disease. But in the decade or so after that, roughly 9,000 papers on the subject would be published in various places, all theorizing what could be the cause, but absolutely no one being able to figure out the cure, the treatment, or really nailing down the cause. Okay. Yeah. Despite the horrific toll that this is taking on the patient's. Encephalitis Lethargica is taking on a patient's brain and body. It would eventually lead to some pretty groundbreaking discoveries about the function of the brain in general, because, remember, we're in the early 1900s. So though he couldn't examine the brains of his patients directly, at least not while they're alive, Von Economo theorized that patients with Encephalitis Lethargica had been infected with some kind of virus that only affected one part of the brain. Okay. As a result, he would eventually establish that the affected region, the hypothalamus, was responsible because we didn't know what the parts of the brain were responsible for at this point. But he was able to, like, go backwards and figure out that the hypothalamus is responsible for, among other things, regulating sleep, body temperature, thirst and hunger, and so on. So.

[Ash]

Boom. That's groundbreaking. Yeah, that's.

[Elena]

Big. While this is now considered pretty basic information in neurology, at least, it was a really remarkable discovery in this day. And more importantly, at least for Von Economo and the other doctors studying this disease, it narrowed down the affected area and helped them to rule out other Illnesses and potential causes of mystery illnesses. The problem, though, is that by the end of the decade, Encephalitis Lethargica was no longer just affecting soldiers returning from war, but even more alarming was the fact that cases were popping up outside of Paris and Vienna. Now, the disease was spreading faster than they expected, and they had no way of stopping it or even slowing it down because they didn't know what the fuck it was.

[Ash]

Right. So what do you like, what precautions do you even put into.

[Elena]

Place? So as the war raged across Europe, the Middle east and Northern Africa, troops continued being moved in and out of those regions by the thousands. As men were injured or killed, they would be removed from battle and replaced with healthy soldiers, and the war would continue. Now, in the context of a battle, that's obviously a necessity, but it never occurred to anyone in charge that by moving so many people in and out of these places, they were creating the perfect environment for this virus to spread. Yeah. Now, just as the first patients showed up at the Von Economo and Cruschet clinics after being taken off the front lines, other soldiers were cycled off the battlefield and sent to hospitals and clinics in their respective home countries. When the war ended in November 1918, the vast majority who survived were shipped home, bringing with them the germs that they picked up while.

[Ash]

Serving. Oh, man. And it was probably just like popping off all over those.

[Elena]

Ships. Now, between 1917 and 1930, nearly 1 million people contracted Encephalitis Lethargica. And of those, roughly half died as a result of their.

[Ash]

Symptoms.

[Elena]

Jesus. Now, those numbers are small relative to other pandemics and epidemics, but for a remarkably bizarre and mysterious illness, it's pretty surprising that Encephalitis lethargica, the epidemic has never really had, like, a bit. It's like a.

[Ash]

Footnote.

[Elena]

Yeah. In medical history. Like, it's.

[Ash]

Crazy. Well, at the same time, it was probably hard to diagnose, too. So who's to. Who really knows how many people did die of.

[Elena]

That? We just didn't know exactly. Now, one reason for that status is the fact that among the germs passed around the world following the end of World War I was the Spanish flu. Yeah. A virus that raged for more than two years and killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. As Molly Caldwell Crosby said, in Europe and elsewhere, few people worried about the little known epidemic of sleep. They were preoccupied with the rapidly spreading, extremely virulent influenza breaking out among troops in Europe and the United States. States. Which makes.

[Ash]

Sense. Yeah, it.

[Elena]

Does. Now, by 1918, encephalitis lethargica had made its way to England, where it proved just as perplexing and unable to be defined as it had been when it first appeared in France and Italy. Among the first cases reported came from physician Dr. A.J. hall, who by that time had already heard of this disease. And what struck hall as unusual was that his patient, who was a young boy, did not seem really exhausted or even sleepy, but he was experiencing a level of muscle weakness that left him unable to lift an arm or leg off the.

[Ash]

Bed. Damn. Yeah, that's.

[Elena]

Intense. So his body was.

[Ash]

Tired.

[Elena]

Yeah. This was similar to the first civilian to visit Von Economos clinic, who was unable to hold himself up in the chair and keep his head up for any period of.

[Ash]

Time.

[Elena]

Yeah. Now, soon, other cases of Encephalitis Lethargica started showing up at Hall's clinic and they arrived with symptoms of the flu, which was rampant at the time. But then a short time later, the symptoms would progress and that's when we'd see all the strange Encephalitis Lethargica symptoms. All suffered from profound lethargy and hypersomnia, which appeared to affect most patients more severely during the.

[Ash]

Day.

[Elena]

Interesting. Crosby wrote, it was as if their sleep cycle was turned around. They stayed in the sleepy stupor all day and became delirious at night. Oh. And by that time, one or more common symptoms seen in patients in the UK was a tendency to mumble or ramble incoherently like they were talking in their.

[Ash]

Sleep. Ew, that's so.

[Elena]

Spooky. It's the spookiest.

[Ash]

Illness. I don't like.

[Elena]

That. As the numbers of infected were growing more unnerving, symptoms started coming out too. Patients would fall asleep with their eyes wide.

[Ash]

Open. No, shut the up wide.

[Elena]

Open. Unmoving, staring blankly into the.

[Ash]

Distance.

[Elena]

No. Others got facial hypertonia, a type of muscle rigidity that left their faces twisted and fixed in a mask like expression of horror. Yeah. There were other extreme, though much less common symptoms. Semen patients. As more cases kept popping up, and in Hall's clinic, many patients who would be in a stupor like state during the day would come out of that state in the evening and be in a state of euphoria, causing them to talk incessantly or writhe around in their beds. What.

[Ash]

The. Like, what makes you think of Nancy at the end of the.

[Elena]

Craft? Yes, that's immediately what I thought.

[Ash]

Of. He gave me the.

[Elena]

Gift. And in one case, a young boy was described as, quote, leaping from all fours into the air. Like the mechanical toys sold on the London streets called jumping beetles. What?

[Ash]

Yeah. He said, I feel.

[Elena]

Better. Yep. He would just jump at night, he'd jump around on all.

[Ash]

Fours. That's literally you. When you feel like a millisecond better and the doctors are like, no, you still are saying, lay down, get it.

[Elena]

Together. It's true. Now, for some, the exhaustion rendered them unaware of their more physical symptoms. Cause they were so tired they couldn't really experience any of the other.

[Ash]

Symptoms. Well, they just like, weren't with.

[Elena]

It. Yeah. For others, like the boy leaping from all fours, the symptoms were terrifying, to say the very least. Yeah. Worse than the presentation of the symptoms was the fact that doctors who encountered the disease in their patients couldn't do really shit for.

[Ash]

Them. Yeah, well. Cause they just don't know what to.

[Elena]

Treat. Yeah. By the end of 1918, the first year the disease appeared in England, there were more than 500 cases. And in the months that followed, the number doubled. In January 1919, towns and cities across England started posting notices in the papers informing residents that one or more cases had been documented in their area and urging anyone with symptoms to report their.

[Ash]

Case. They said, lay low.

[Elena]

Motherfuckers. One notice said, in view of the serious nature of the disease and the difficulties attending their treatment and presentation, it is highly important that notice be sent to the medical officer of health in every case without delay. Now, in the early months of 1919, as British physicians were just grappling with this mysterious illness, cases of this illness began appearing in the United States. In New York, several cases appeared in large clusters and among groups with social connections, giving doctors the first clue that whatever was causing this, it appeared to be spread through close contact. Yeah. In response, they began investigating the commonalities among the affected individuals, including their living conditions, shared food, water sources, and any kinship relations between those showing symptoms. Now, among the first patients documented in that phase was a 16 year old girl identified as Ruth. That winter, she was brought to the Manhattan clinic of Dr. Frederick Tilney, one of the city's most well known neurologists. When Tilney was first informed of this new patient, all he was told was that she had fallen asleep and wouldn't wake.

[Ash]

Up.

[Elena]

Jesus. By that time, Tilney had already read the medical literature coming from the doctors in Europe and believed he had already seen a few mild cases of sleeping sickness. So when Ruth's parents described her symptoms, he was like, she got encephalitis.

[Ash]

Lethargica. He says she has The.

[Elena]

Grandma. The.

[Ash]

Grandma. The.

[Elena]

Nona. The Nona. According to Ruth's parents, she had returned home from work one afternoon about a week after Christmas and began complaining. And this is the strangest beginning to this. She started complaining of a sharp pain in one of her.

[Ash]

Fingers.

[Elena]

Random. That had come on.

[Ash]

Suddenly.

[Elena]

What? Within hours, the pain had spread up her arm and into her shoulder, causing numbness that would eventually lead to paralysis. Ew. By the next day, Ruth had become irrationally fearful and started lashing out violently at her.

[Ash]

Parents. Oh, my.

[Elena]

God. Like, she would gnash her teeth and, like, thrash wildly. She's.

[Ash]

16.

[Elena]

Yeah. To the point that she had to be sedated and restrained. She was like a wild animal, they said. Thank God. A short time later, she fell asleep and could not be roused. By the time Dr. Tilney was called, she had been asleep for two.

[Ash]

Months. Why did it take so long to call Dr.

[Elena]

Tilney? Because I guess she was at a different hospital. She was. She had a feeding tube and an IV Dr. To keep her nourished. Two months. Two months.

[Ash]

Sleeping.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

What? Back to that finger thing. It's actually, like, that's crazy. That's how I. That's how my Covid started the first. I've only had it.

[Elena]

Once. Your finger.

[Ash]

Hurt? No, it's similar, though. My elbow was like. And it's like, joint pain. But my elbow was so sore. And I remember saying to Drew, I was like, oh, my God, my.

[Elena]

Elbow is so sore right now. So.

[Ash]

Bizarre. And then the rest of my body started hurting, and I was like, do I have Covid? But it started in my.

[Elena]

Elbow.

[Ash]

Wow. Isn't that.

[Elena]

Weird? That is.

[Ash]

Weird. When I looked it up, it was like, yeah, like, joint pain. Like, it makes sense. But it was.

[Elena]

One. But it's just, like, elbow.

[Ash]

Hurts. Yeah, it was.

[Elena]

Weird. And Ruth was like, my finger hurts.

[Ash]

Yeah. I mean, the finger is, like, even.

[Elena]

Stranger. Crazy. Yeah. So among the things that puzzled Tilney the most was the fact that although she appeared to be asleep. This is even weirder. She was able to respond to simple.

[Ash]

Commands. Well, that's like when we were talking about comas.

[Elena]

Recently.

[Ash]

Yeah. Like, how we. How we don't have a lot of understanding about.

[Elena]

That. But she was like someone in a trance. He said. Like, her eyes and mouth were closed. Okay. But she was able to respond to simple prompts from the doctor. When Tilney asked Ruth to shift her body from one side of the bed to the other, she did it. So she could still hear with difficulty, but she did.

[Ash]

It.

[Elena]

Okay. By that time, she had developed the additional symptom of hypertonia, which caused the muscles in her arms and legs to become rigid and stuck in what was surely uncomfortable positions for.

[Ash]

Hours. I was gonna say that must be so.

[Elena]

Painful. And just stuck. Yeah. According to Crosby, when Tilney Moo tried to move her from the bed, she began to tremble. It started with a hand or arm and then spread until her entire body was convulsing in a rabbit like twitch. Oh, my God. Like so many other doctors around the world, Tilney had come to recognize the symptoms of Encephalitis lethargica. The nona, the grandma. But was at a loss for how to treat it. That's the worst part of.

[Ash]

It. That will you.

[Elena]

Do? In the end, his recommendations were just basically ways to make Ruth more physically.

[Ash]

Comfortable. Yeah, that makes.

[Elena]

Sense. But he was forced to tell her parents that as of that time, there was no treatment or cure and that their doctor was. Their daughter was likely to stay in that state forever. In fact, a few days later, Ruth's temperature spiked to 107 degrees and she died. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's awful. What a.

[Ash]

Horrific. After months of living that way, I'm just horrible. Oh.

[Elena]

Yeah. That's so sad. So as cases began spreading in the US so did anxiety and fear. Now about this disease. The Spanish flu epidemic had affected millions of people around the US and the world, killing massive numbers of people. But influenza was something people could at least understand. Like, they could. They could recognize influenza, you know, what the flu is, you know? And also the most devastating effects of the flu affected certain populations, which made it less intimidating to the general public. Right. Encephalitis lethargic, on the other hand, was something fucking.

[Ash]

Terrifying. Yeah. It seemed like anybody could get.

[Elena]

It. And totally weird and bizarre and scary and.

[Ash]

Horrific.

[Elena]

Yeah. Not only were the symptoms varied across patients, but they were psychologically disturbing, physically disabling, and seemingly impossible to treat. And even if one did manage to survive the acute phase of illness, the chronic phase brought with it Parkinson's, like symptoms that would be profoundly life altering at that point.

[Ash]

Yeah. Which is like so.

[Elena]

Scary. People lived with this forever. Wow. While new cases started popping up around the US With a lot of frequency now, the American public looked to doctors and healthcare workers to explain this scary disease that seemed to come out of the nowhere. Yeah. But by that point, the predominant theory was that Encephalitis lethargica was somehow related to the flu epidemic that had recently gone.

[Ash]

Crazy. Like, almost like a.

[Elena]

Mutated. Yeah. Like almost just like a pop off of it. You know what I mean? A pop off. You know, a quick pop off.

[Ash]

Sore. Pop it.

[Elena]

Off. It's like a pop up version of the flu. Yeah. Since so many of the symptoms, particularly the early ones, were seen in cases of the flu, like, you would come in with flu like.

[Ash]

Symptoms.

[Elena]

Right. And encephalitis was caused by an infection, it seemed reasonable to presume that the sleeping sickness was an after effect of the Spanish flu. Similarly, just a few years earlier, an epidemic of malaria had spread across the African continent, sharing several of the more prominent symptoms seen in patients with encephalitis lethargica. As a result, some doctors theorized that the newly emerged disease could be.

[Ash]

Related. I mean, yeah, I could see why they would think.

[Elena]

That. Yeah. By early spring, administrators in cities across the US Were forced to address this growing fear. They had to talk to the public. They couldn't just let them be.

[Ash]

Like, oh, because it's like, what do you do? Like, what precautions do you.

[Elena]

Take? But the worst part is they have no information. Like, they have, like, very little.

[Ash]

Information. There's this episode of spongebob where he just like, is not gonna go outside and he sings this song where he's like, indoors.

[Elena]

Indoors. That's basically what they were.

[Ash]

Doing. That would be me. They're just door to door. Door. Stay.

[Elena]

Inside.

[Olivia]

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[Ash]

Listening. Hey, neighbor. Celebrate all things spring with Birch.

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[Elena]

[e-mail]. Now, in San Francisco, the city's health department released a statement in early March 1919, saying San Francisco need have no fear of the sleeping.

[Ash]

Sickness. Don't you lie to me like.

[Elena]

That. As an aftermath of the influenza, it is well established that the sleeping sickness is carried by the tsetse fly and occasionally by other insects found in Africa. And the. It has no direct connection with the influenza, which is an entirely different.

[Ash]

Origin. That's a bitch made.

[Elena]

Statement. That's a very bitch made statement. And it would turn out that San Francisco health officials were wrong on literally every point that they put in that.

[Ash]

Also. What's a TTSE.

[Elena]

Fly? It's like. It's like a little. I think it's almost like a mosquito kind of thing. Just four days later, physicians in the city started reporting their first cases of encephalitis lethargica. So they were. San Francisco health officials were like, it's nope, don't worry. No tsetse flies here. Get out of here. Nope. And then four days later, they were like, so my.

[Ash]

Bad. Does that sound familiar to.

[Elena]

Anyone? No, it sounds totally foreign. I can.

[Ash]

Imagine. Almost like we were told the same.

[Elena]

Thing. It's almost like that. In one case, a local railroad worker, Chester Jones, came down with symptoms and slept for 10 days straight. Sleep. Not Chester, just.

[Ash]

Chester. Honestly, he probably, like, loved that. Ten days of sleep, if that was it because of railroad workers.

[Elena]

That's. That's a hard job. Yeah. During that period, Jones's doctor, W.B. coffee, was able to rouse him long enough to eat a small amount of food or drink water, but otherwise he was.

[Ash]

Out.

[Elena]

Damn. And. And this isn't like a coma. That's the thing. It's like they are sleeping, like, straight because they can wake up and be like, here, have. Have toast. Right? And then they're like, all right, good night. Like, back to sleep. It's.

[Ash]

Crazy. Are they, like. I wonder if they were, like, able to, like, get up to use the bathroom.

[Elena]

Or. Yeah. Or if they had to, like. Yeah. Now, Coffee said, we have had both hiccups and the sleeping sickness among the various other effects of the influence. So hiccups are back. This form of sleeping sickness is to be distinguished from that which is carried by the tsetse fly and is found in the. So he's like, lies. Yeah, he's not the.

[Ash]

Same. You guys fucked.

[Elena]

Up. Meanwhile, in New York, the first deaths from sleeping sickness were reported, starting with steamship captain Frank Martin, who'd been diagnosed with encephalitis lethargica Just five days earlier, the rising number of deaths inspired way more fear in the public, obviously. But state and local health officials are trying to minimize the danger of it. The New York health commissioner told reporters the symptoms of the disease are much the same as those of spring.

[Ash]

Fever.

[Elena]

Disagree. Lying sacks of shit. Like, are you sorry? Like, that's insane to do and.

[Ash]

You'Re just trying to piss.

[Elena]

Everybody. And I love this, but just because a man feels languid, he need not jump to the conclusion he has contracted sleeping.

[Ash]

Sickness. I would jump to that conclusion if I felt.

[Elena]

Languid. I feel like I have a sleeping sickness. Okay. Being languid feels sleepy. A little more intense than feeling just a little.

[Ash]

Sleepy. Yeah, the fuck.

[Elena]

Now. The willingness to disregard the dangers of Encephalitis Lethargica was not limited to the U.S. in Montreal. So Canada, you are not immune to.

[Ash]

This. You are usually on the right side of the.

[Elena]

Country. We usually. We're rooting for you. We're all rooting for.

[Ash]

You. We're all rooting for you. I've never in my life yelled at a girl like.

[Elena]

This. That's right, so. But in Montreal, healthcare workers simply took. They took a very dismissive approach to it. Canada, obviously, it was in an effort to quell public.

[Ash]

Fear. Yeah. They don't need, like, mass.

[Elena]

Pandemonium. They didn't know enough about, like, how to properly inform without.

[Ash]

Inciting. They didn't know a lot about truth telling back.

[Elena]

Then. It happens. One hospital works. This reluctance to diagnose Encephalitis Lethargica does not discredit the Montreal physicians in any way. To determine absolutely that a patient was suffering from a new disease is extremely difficult. And in every case so far, there has been an element of.

[Ash]

Doubt. Well, that's.

[Elena]

Fair. So they're being. They're being much more, like, I would say, like, you know, diplomatic about.

[Ash]

It.

[Elena]

Yes. You know, they're just sitting there being like, maybe it's not because we don't want to. It's because it's hard to diagnose.

[Ash]

A new disease, which.

[Elena]

Does. Yeah, I get.

[Ash]

That. And you don't want to say something as that and then be completely not.

[Elena]

Wrong. Yeah. By 1921, doctors had still not discovered a solution for this or what it was, but they were managing to at least make some headway in, like, starting to understand it better. Not only were they continuing to narrow down the areas of the brain affected by encephalitis Lethargica, but they were also starting to recognize earlier cases that had been Diagnosed as something else. Okay. Because they didn't understand this disease before. In Los Angeles, for example, one doctor described having been referred a patient from, quote, the leading alienist in Los Angeles. I love when they were called alienists. After the young woman had been diagnosed with.

[Ash]

Catatonia.

[Elena]

Okay. He said, I was called in after three of the physicians, along with their mental specialists, had tried every blood test and every means of diagnosing the condition for a week. In retrospect, the doctor recalled, the woman had influenza not long before the new symptoms.

[Ash]

Came.

[Elena]

Okay. Which further supported the suspected link between the.

[Ash]

Two.

[Elena]

Right. Now, over the course of the 1920s, physicians and specialists kept trying to nail this shit down. And in 1923, for example, a study out of Europe found that out of 1,000 encephalitis lethargica patients evaluated, only four had a history of influenza within the previous six months, of which two were.

[Ash]

Doubtful. So that's not.

[Elena]

It. Yeah. So similarly, in a much larger study conducted at Camp Dix In New Jersey, 6,000 cases of influenza were studied and no concurrent cases of Encephalitis Lethargica were identified. Wow. So it seemed to kind of bash that link in the head. Definitely. Further complicating matters was the fact that not all patients experienced the same symptoms, nor were they affected in the same ways and for the same length of time. There was like no consistency. For instance, a middle aged man in New York might fall into a coma and die from a fever a week later, which literally happened while a teenage girl in London would experience delirium and hypersomnia that lasted for a month, then went away miraculously. And there was hardly ever a clue.

[Ash]

Why. What started it.

[Elena]

Right? In 1936, Joseph Langen Jr. A 30 year old Illinois man, woke from an encephalitis lethargic, a coma after 440 days. Oh my God. Shocking.

[Ash]

Everyone. Just a year of your life gone. Over a year of your life.

[Elena]

Gone. Just woke up 440.

[Ash]

Days. He said, all right, let's do.

[Elena]

This. Yeah. He said, I feel.

[Ash]

Rested.

[Elena]

Yeah. So let's.

[Ash]

Go. I wonder if he had any after.

[Elena]

Effects. Yeah, that's the thing. A lot of symptoms, a lot of them did. And most of the people around him thought he would succumb to what they were calling the sleep of death at this point. Yeah. Now, perhaps one of the most baffling things about Encephalitis Lethargica epidemic was that after more than a decade of crazy, bizarre symptoms and a lot of tragic outcomes, the disease just seemed to.

[Ash]

Disappear, which is so strange because it's like there weren't a lot of precautions put into place because they didn't know what precautions.

[Elena]

Exactly. So, like, where did it go? According to Dr. R.R. dormaschkin, by 1927, the acute cases occurring in England were often so mild that the acute phase would pass without much notice. But the long term effects could often be quite devastating, leaving a lot of individuals in comas for the rest of their.

[Ash]

Lives. Oh, that's.

[Elena]

Awful. While new cases of encephalitis lethargica began slowing as early as the later 1920s, and they were considered exceptionally rare, by the 1930s, those who'd neither died nor recovered from the illness were left in like a vegetative state for the rest of their. They just didn't really come out of it. Even if they came out of the coma, they would be like, forever.

[Ash]

Changed. Yeah, I mean, of.

[Elena]

Course. And those who did survive were left with what neurologist Oliver Sacks described as extraordinary crises that could include the, quote, simultaneous, virtually instantaneous onset, a Parkinsonism, catatonia, tics, obsessions, and 30 or 40 other problems.

[Ash]

Sometimes. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's like, so that it literally robbed their.

[Elena]

Life. It's.

[Ash]

Like. But you really.

[Elena]

Don'T. Yeah, like, do you? In the aftermath of this epidemic, most doctors were content to accept the theory that it was related to influenza or just allow the disease to be a mystery. They were like, whatever, we don't know. Who knows? Hope it doesn't happen again, you know? Decades after the epidemic had ended, Sachs's focus was on treating those locked in the comas still by this disease in the first place. Beginning in the late 1960s, Sachs started working with Encephalitis lethargica coma, or catatonic patients at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx. In his experiments with the amino acid L Dopa, Sachs found that many of the patients suffering with the severe Parkinson's like symptoms of Encephalitis lethargica, including muscle rigidity, spasms and tremors, could find relief. Like, incredible relief, really. Although the success of L Dopa proved limited and temporary at the time, ongoing research in the years since has resulted into continuing success with treating people who have dealt with these long term.

[Ash]

Symptoms.

[Elena]

Okay. In 2002, the last known survivor of the encephalitis lethargic epidemic, Philip Leather, died in London at the age of 82. Wow. He was once a child prodigy. He had incredible promise. And he contracted the illness in 1931 while he was still a child. And he spent seven decades in what the press described as a quote, trance like state. Seven decades. Seventy years. They said he just slowly went into himself over a period of a few years. That's what his sister said. Now after his death, his brain was donated to the Royal London Hospital where a lot of specialists were hoping it was going to just completely unlock all the secrets of the disease. But unfortunately it didn't really shed any.

[Ash]

Light.

[Elena]

Nothing. Which is like wild that there was no like Hallmark thing that you could point to to say this is what happened. As of today. Cases occasionally pop up from time to.

[Ash]

Time. Up. Don't even tell.

[Elena]

Me. But they're super rare. Like exceedingly rare. They better be. As for the cause of this sleeping sickness, they still don't know to this day. 2026, we still have no clue what the. How come on. It's no longer widely believed to be related to.

[Ash]

Influenza. Well, just with those studies.

[Elena]

Alone. Yeah. It just doesn't seem to connect anymore. And some neurologists believe it may be like an autoimmune response to a virus, while others think that there could be environmental or infectious or viral explanations for it. But others believe that it could be. There could be like multiple causes for the.

[Ash]

Illness. I wonder if it was.

[Elena]

Like. Be.

[Ash]

Like. I wonder if the reason it's so rare now is like it was like some kind of illness obviously, but it was maybe exacerbated by something that we don't intake.

[Elena]

Anymore. Like we don't do.

[Ash]

Anymore. You know what I.

[Elena]

Mean? Yeah. That's what I wonder. I wonder if environmentally there's.

[Ash]

Something.

[Elena]

Yeah. That we've shed out of our system or shut out of our way of life.

[Ash]

That.

[Elena]

Right. We're no longer being exposed to. Yeah. I think that would be an interesting thing to go back and look.

[Ash]

Through.

[Elena]

Yeah. Try to like work backwards that way. Right. Because it's.

[Ash]

Just. But it's like what would it be that would. And that would affect so many people from so many like, like various.

[Elena]

Age ranges and give them so many different kinds of.

[Ash]

Symptoms.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like the difference in symptoms is.

[Ash]

Wild. It just makes me think of like the radium girls.

[Olivia]

Case.

[Ash]

Like. Yeah. How they were like painting their mouths with radium and then all that. That crazy.

[Elena]

Happen. That case will blow my mind for the rest of my.

[Ash]

Life. No, truly, it really.

[Elena]

Will.

[Ash]

But. Yeah, but you wonder if it's something like that. If it's like this used to be in like our milk or this.

[Elena]

Used to be in a cleaning product, the air or you know, or these People would take for a.

[Ash]

Cold. Yeah. Like, these people live near these plants that produce this, like, I wonder, like.

[Elena]

Clothing. Yeah. Hair stuff. Fiber. Could be.

[Ash]

Anything.

[Elena]

Yeah. Some.

[Ash]

Soap. But it would have to be so vastly used because so many, like. Yeah, kids were getting this and like, elderly people were.

[Elena]

Getting. That's the thing. There was no, like, age range either. It's like.

[Ash]

Everybody. It's.

[Elena]

Interesting. So I feel like it has to be like a. Like a. Something you'd use on your body. Yeah. You know, that would be. You would use on a kid and.

[Ash]

Yeah. Or like. Or like you said, like a cleaning product like that somebody might have used in their.

[Elena]

House.

[Ash]

Yeah. I feel like we should really continue looking into this, though, so that this doesn't happen.

[Elena]

Again. Let's figure this out. Guys. Guys, let's do it. Let's figure it out. We can all do.

[Ash]

This. Weird things have happened where like, the Somerton man case was, like, solved right after we.

[Elena]

Covered. So maybe they'll figure it out because we put it into the.

[Ash]

World. That'd be weird. I'm putting it into the world.

[Elena]

Right now that we're gonna figure it.

[Ash]

Out. I would love.

[Elena]

That. That'd be.

[Ash]

Sick. That would be a big fucking.

[Elena]

Claim. That would.

[Ash]

Be. And like, I'm never claiming to solve anything, but I'm just saying it's.

[Elena]

Weird timing because there's a small contingent of people who get so fucking angry when we. When we will claim.

[Ash]

That. Stay.

[Elena]

Mad. Which makes me want to claim.

[Ash]

More. I'm claiming it.

[Elena]

But. But like, I'll claim this.

[Ash]

One. I would totally claim this one. I'll claim it. Imagine if we were right, too. If they were like, oh, my.

[Elena]

God, it wasn't a cleaning process based on the.

[Ash]

Mall. We never thought of. Was in.

[Elena]

Clorox. Decades and decades. We never thought of.

[Ash]

This. Clorox is like, don't. It wasn't.

[Elena]

Me. No, Clorox didn't do it. Clorox is like.

[Ash]

Y'.

[Elena]

All. No, it wasn't.

[Ash]

Clorox. No, it was not Clorox. It doesn't affect my entire.

[Elena]

Home. Clorox, we love you. Come on the pod. Clorox. Come on the.

[Ash]

Pod. You're.

[Elena]

Invited. Oh.

[Ash]

Man. That's a crazy ass.

[Elena]

Case. Isn't that crazy? This was just like, it's. Every once in a while we like to throw a weird history thing in there. Like some weird illness or something. Just to, like, shake it up a.

[Ash]

Little. Falls under the morbid.

[Elena]

Umbrella. Anything that's morbid and bizarre. Yeah. Every once in a while we got to throw a curveball. And this one just like, really fast. Fascinating. Dave was fascinated by this. I was fascinated by this because.

[Ash]

It'S just so crazy that we've never figured it.

[Elena]

Out. That's the.

[Ash]

Thing. Like, we figured out a.

[Elena]

Lot. And then it was like, concurrently running, like the Spanish flu was happening. So it got kind of buried under.

[Ash]

Those. What if it was like, man made by, like, some chemist maybe and, like, got.

[Elena]

Out? Who knows? Who knows, who.

[Ash]

Knows? Not.

[Elena]

Me. Not.

[Ash]

Me. Not me. But yeah, if you guys ever want us to cover something that, like, you like, something similar to this that, like, you feel falls under the morbid umbrella, send it in to morbidpodcast gmail.com with like, unconventional, morbid.

[Elena]

Idea. Yeah, because, you know, we don't do these often. Like, we try to. You know, we mostly do true.

[Ash]

Crime, but they're really fun to sprinkle in.

[Elena]

For. But every once in a while, it's fun to like, give you guys a little, like, huh. Yeah, that was weird and.

[Ash]

Interesting. And we could always throw it like, you know, we have that bonus.

[Elena]

Episode.

[Ash]

Exactly. So we could always throw it over there if it's not everybody's.

[Elena]

Thing. But so if you got weird, bizarre history things, science things, medical things that you. You would just really love to hear a discussion about. Yeah, a deep dive in. Throw it our.

[Ash]

Way. We'd love to do some morbid finds.

[Elena]

Yeah. The more the.

[Ash]

Merrier. All right, let's find a weird fact to finish this off. I think it's your.

[Elena]

Turn. The word pothole, it's a redundant term because pot comes from the middle English word pit meaning hole. So the. A pothole is a whole hole. A whole hole. A whole.

[Ash]

Hole. I'm only going to be calling them whole holes. God damn. Will they fill in that whole.

[Elena]

Hole. God damn. In Massachusetts is full of hole.

[Ash]

Holes. So holes everywhere. Whole holes in your.

[Elena]

Hair. All kinds of.

[Ash]

Holes. I like.

[Elena]

That. That is a.

[Ash]

Fun. And with that, we hope you.

[Elena]

Keep listening and we hope you keep.

[Ash]

It weir but not so weird that you don't keep it real sexy in here. Drive slow over holes and cover.

[Elena]

Your mouth when you got avoid them. Hey, everybody, it's.

[Olivia]

Babs. I am so excited to tell.

[Elena]

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[Olivia]

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[Olivia]

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[Ash]

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[Ash]

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