Wiktionary
n. sleepy sickness
WordNet
n. an encephalitis that was epidemic between 1915 and 1926; symptoms include paralysis of the extrinsic eye muscle and extreme muscular weakness [syn: sleeping sickness, sleepy sickness, epidemic encephalitis, lethargic encephalitis]
Wikipedia
Encephalitis lethargica or von Economo disease is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleepy sickness" (distinct from tsetse fly-transmitted sleeping sickness), it was first described in 1917 by the neurologist Constantin von Economo and the pathologist Jean-René Cruchet. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless. Between 1915 and 1926, an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica spread around the world. Nearly five million people were affected, a third of whom died in the acute stages. Many of those who survived never returned to their pre-existing "aliveness". "They would be conscious and aware - yet not fully awake; they would sit motionless and speechless all day in their chairs, totally lacking energy, impetus, initiative, motive, appetite, affect or desire; they registered what went on about them without active attention, and with profound indifference. They neither conveyed nor felt the feeling of life; they were as insubstantial as ghosts, and as passive as zombies." (Awakenings, Oliver Sacks,p 14) No recurrence of the epidemic has since been reported, though isolated cases continue to occur.
Usage examples of "encephalitis lethargica".
You know, of course, that he's had Encephalitis Lethargica, sleepy sickness, as it's commonly called?
In 1916, in one such case, people in Europe and America began to come down with a strange sleeping sickness, which became known as encephalitis lethargica.
We know a hundred things that will kill the slug-smallpox, typhus, syphilis, encephalitis lethargica, Obermeyer's virus, plague, yellow fever, and so on.
We know a hundred things that will kill the slug-smallpox, typhus, syphilis, encephalitis lethargica, Obermeyer’.
And we've called it a kind of sleeping sickness, encephalitis lethargica.