Although little or nothing has been published on the roll of oxidative stress in Encephalitis lethargica, damage by reactive oxygen species has been implicated in other forms of such disorders, as for example in Japanese encephalitis. There is still disagreement over which virus was involved in this disease but the disorder often preceded Parkinsonism, suggesting that there must have been similarities in neurological damage. Also known as sleeping sickness or sleepy sickness, those who survived the initial infection typically displayed long term apathy, paralysis of the extrinsic eye muscles and extreme muscular weaknesses. “Encephalitis lethargica is a viral epidemic encephalitis that occurred in many parts of the world between 19. The following text is an edited excerpt from an article by Foster and Hoffer : Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, “awakening” effect (the drama film Awakenings 1990). Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. This is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I.

The awakening movie