noun

• A form of encephalitis caused by a virus and characterized by headache and drowsiness leading to coma.

  Also called sleeping sickness

  ‘It tracks the research of two medical teams into the cause of encephalitis lethargica, a strange neurological condition causing coma and catatonia, of which there was a pandemic between 1917 and 1928.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘We all know that memory may be obliterated by an injury to the brain, that a virtuous person may be rendered vicious by encephalitis lethargica, and that a clever child can be turned into an idiot by lack of iodine.’
  • ‘As a young man Milne had suffered from encephalitis lethargica.’