SLEEPY SICKNESS BAFFLES DOCTORS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18055, 15 January 1927, Page 9

SLEEPY SICKNESS BAFFLES DOCTORS.

EXPERTS INVESTIGATE SHEFFIELD OUTBREAK(SpeciaI to the “Star.”) LONDON, November 26 Sleepy sickness still remains a medical mystery. The result of an investigation of the outbreak in Sheffield in 1924, by a committee of medical experts, including Dr J. A. Hall, who with Dr Wilfred Harris, of London, first identified the disease in England, is given in a report published to-day by the 'Medical Research Council, “The Sheffield Outbreak of Epidemic Encephalitis, 1924.” Professor F. E. Wynne, medical officer of health for Sheffield, one of the investigators, takes the view that the epidemic character of sleepy sickness is associated with the world wide lowerings of resistance to infections in the last stage of the war “known as the influenza pandemic of 1918.” The report finds that the correlation between sleepy sickness and influenza is a controversial subject. There was no very obvious connection between the two diseases in Sheffield. In 1924 influenza declined, but lethargic encephalitis reached unprecedented figures. The following definite conclusions are drawn in the report:—Men and boys are more susceptible than women and girls, but the mortality among the latter sex is greater. The disease attacks every class and there is no evidence that overcrowding, poverty, or insanitary conditions in dwellings have any effect in promoting its incidence. There is no reliable evidence that the disease is transmitted by direct contact or conveyed by water, milk or other fdod. Last week 47 new cases were notified in England and Wales, an increase from 33 in the previous lveek.