Abstract
ABOUT two years ago reports began to appear con-o**o cerning a "new "acute general disease associated with a condition of apathy and drowsiness which passed into lethargv. Other striking features _ were progressive muscular weakness and paralysis _ of various cranial nerves, leading especially to squint. The prevailing abnormal conditions of life and living caused suspicion at first to fall on articles of diet. Thus some observers were struck by a similarity to cases of botulism, a disease due to the poisons of a bacillus which can flourish in foodstuffs kept out of contact with air, as when meat or vegetables are immersed in a weak pickle. Others suggested that some essential accessory factor had been lacking in the diet, so leading to a "deficiency "disease, perhaps analogous to beri-beri, in which nervous symptoms are prominent from affection of the peripheral nerves. But the wide area over which cases were distributed, and the rarity with which more than a single member was attacked in any one family, almost excluded such theories of causation.
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B., C. An Obscure Disease, Encephalitis Lethargica. Nature 104, 452–453 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/104452b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/104452b0