The Mystery of the Disease Known as "Sleeping Sickness"

[Webster]

In the 1920s, a strange and terrifying illness spread across the world — and then, just as suddenly, it vanished. Encephalitis lethargica, sometimes called sleeping sickness, left millions of people frozen in their own bodies. They were awake but couldn’t move or speak — stuck in a living nightmare. More than 5 million people were affected. To this day, no one really knows what caused it… or why it disappeared without a trace. This video takes a deep dive into one of medicine’s most unsettling mysteries — including the case of Patricia Maguire, known as Oak Park’s real-life “Sleeping Beauty.” And we’ll ask the question no one wants to hear: could it come back?

In this episode
--What is encephalitis lethargica?
--Chilling real-life cases
--Possible links to post-viral syndromes
--Modern theories and unanswered questions