scienceillustrated.com.au | 77WONDER DRUG WOKE THE LIVING DEAD
Forty years later, at the Beth Abraham Hospital in the
Bronx, New York, a breakthrough is made. In 1969, British
neurologist Oliver Sacks thinks about experimenting with
a new, promising drug, which is really intended for
Parkinson’s patients. In the 1950s, scientists have
discovered that patients with Parkinson’s have highly
reduced concentrations of the dopamine neurotransmitter
in their brains. Scientists have also discovered the
levodopa drug, which is converted into dopamine in the
cells of the brain. Sacks has noticed that many sleepy
sickness patients have case histories reminiscent of
Parkinson’s, and in his opinion, it is obvious to test the
same drug on the living dead.
At the Beth Abraham Hospital, an entire ward has been
devoted to lifeless, motionless men and women, who were
infected with sleepy sickness back in the 1920s, and who
doctors have given up on waking again after four decades.
When Oliver Sacks gives the patients levodopa, a medical
miracle happens: like dead people rising from their graves,
the patients wake up from their long hibernation. In some
cases, only a few hours pass from the patients are given
the drug, until the rigidity is gone, and they wake up from
their sleep, full of energy and vitality. Singing, laughter, and
loud voices suddenly fill the ward, which used to be quiet as
a tomb. Some patients are so happy about getting their
lives back that they dance happily about, kissing the
flowers in the hospital garden.
Levodopa has the effect of a life elixir, and after 43
years of hibernation, 64-year-old miss Rose can finally tell
the world how she felt on that night in 1926, when she was
converted into a living statue after a brief period of disease.
The 21-year-old woman dreamt that she was bewitched
and locked inside an impregnable fortress shaped like her
own body. In the dream, she was converted into a monolith,
and when she woke up the next morning, she heard her
parents’ worried voices: Wake up, Rose, wake up. What is
the matter with you? Why do you look like that, why are you
so weird?” Rose wanted to reply, but she could not say a
word, and when she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror,
she realised that the nightmare had become real – her body
was like a statue, numb and motionless. But she was still
conscious about what was going on around her.
DOCTORS STILL HAVE NO CURE
The story about levodopa is like a fantastic fairy tale with
an unhappy ending. For unknown reasons, the effect of the
medication ceases almost overnight, and to avoid relapses,
Oliver Sacks must continuously increase the dosage.
Several patients cannot tolerate the high doses and
experience severe side effects. Some are unable to control
their impulses and get obsessed with sex or develop a
craving for food, whereas others experience delusional
behaviour or muscle cramps. The cause of the side effects
is still not clear, but the tragic truth is that after
approximately three weeks, the effect of levodopa ceases
completely, and the patients go back into hibernation.
Although encephalitis lethargica is still one of the major
mysteries of medical history, scientists have recently
become a little wisser as to what triggers the disease.
Previously, the disease was believed to be caused by a
virus, because the sleepy sickness epidemic raged at the
same time as a flu epidemic. But recently, British virology
professor John Oxford took brain tissue samples from the
victims of the 1920s to analyse them carefully without
finding signs of viral infection.
However, recent studies indicate that the disease is
autoimmune and occurs, when the immune system
erroneously attacks the body’s own cells. Scientists Russell
Dale and Andrew Church reviewed the medical records of 20
patients, who fell ill around 2000 with symptoms of sleepy
sickness. They had all constracted a rare streptococcus
bacterium, and doctors now think that the bacterium
makes the immune system attack brain cells.Scientists try
to fi nd the culpritSCAN REVEALS BRAIN DISEASESo, the mysterious brain disease has once again
proved invincible, and today – 100 years after von
Economo described the disorder – scientists still have
no cure that can revive the human statues. Brain
samples from the victims of the epidemic are still
studied, and new studies indicate that the disease
is not a virus, but rather an autoimmune disorder,
in which the immune system attacks brain cells.
Although the epidemic is decades in the
past, patients with symptoms of encephalitis
lethargica still occur now and then, and hence,
scientists are eager to find an efficient cure
before another outbreak of the
mysterious brain condition.Signs of inflammation
at the centre of the
brain in one of the
patients who developed
encephalitis lethargica
symptoms around 2000.ANF:
DALE ET AL./GUARANTORS OF BRAIN & SHUTTERSTOCKIf the body attacks
itself, a blood sample
can reveal particular
antibodies.