Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries (30 page)

Details about the 1916 polio epidemic in New York City can be found in an online exhibit for the National Museum of American History; Jeffrey Kluger’s
Splendid Solution
(2006); and David Oshinsky’s
Polio
(2006). After centuries of battling diseases associated with filth, it was the first time physicians began to question the relationship between cleanliness and
declining
immunities. Medical studies noted that people living on farms had healthier immune systems than those who lived in cities. The reason: farm families were exposed to a wider variety of microbes.

Sources for the 1918 flu are discussed in the notes for chapter 24, “Gray Matter.”

The quote in the
New York Times
about New York’s health department as a model of municipal health appeared on April 21, 1918.

Health Commissioner Royal Copeland’s campaign to improve public health was closely followed by the
New York Times
in articles published on March 31, 1919, and July 12, 1919. The
New York Times
reported the average life expectancy in the 1920s as fifty years. That is consistent with Sullivan’s book, which listed life expectancy in 1920 as fifty-five years.

Rosner’s book, page 155, remarked upon New York’s health system being recognized worldwide.

Sigmund Freud’s quote was published in his
Mass Psychology,
page 121 (2004 edition).

CASE HISTORY THREE

Chapter 8: Adam

Like Ruth, “Adam’s” name is fictional. However, all other details are factual, from the train ride home to the symptoms to the quotes. The account of Adam’s illness was published more than once, each offering a little more or different personal details. S. E. Jelliffe published the case in a series of articles, “Postencephalitic Respiratory Disorders: Review of the Syndromy, Case Reports and Discussion,”
journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
63 (July-December 1926). In those articles Jelliffe also included some details from Charles Burr, the original doctor to see Adam, who published his case study, “Sequelae of Epidemic Encephalitis without Any Preceding Acute Illness,”
Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry
14 (1925). Jelliffe disagreed with Burr’s original diagnosis and believed Adam’s spring case of the flu was in fact an acute case of encephalitis lethargica.

Chapter 9: Smith Ely Jelliffe

Most biographical material about Jelliffe came from John Burnham’s
jelliffe
(1983). The childhood recollections of Jelliffe were featured in Burnham’s book, pages 9-17.

Some additional information about Jelliffe’s involvement in the nona epidemic and his quotes about misdiagnosing women or “bumble puppy” came from an article Jelliffe published, “Nervous and Mental Disturbances of Influenza,”
New York Medical journal
108 (November 2, 1918). That journal, as well as many of the other, older medical periodicals, is held at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Jelliffe’s quote about his wife’s involvement in science came from Burnham’s book, page 16.

Further details about Jelliffe were taken from
Psychoanalytic Pioneers,
edited by Franz Alexander et al. (1996), the reference to Jelliffe’s first published article about plants in Prospect Park, page 225, and Jelliffe as a fierce opponent in medical debates, page 228.

For some of the more sensational details about Jelliffe, like the trial of Henry K. Thaw, I followed articles in the
New York Times
(March 1907-08). Jelliffe’s testimony in the Albert Fish trial was reported in the
New York Times
(March 21, 1935).

The quote about early Freudian theories came from Burnham’s book, page 70.

The quotation about the human organism and the whole evolutionary product was published by Jelliffe in his “Postencephalitic Respiratory Disorders” article.

The description of Jelliffe as one who gazes backward, takes the path to the present, and analyzes what is to come came from his eulogy.

Burnham’s book, page 87, describes the death of Jelliffe’s first wife and his marriage to his second wife, Bee Dobson. And the colorful stories about Jelliffe as a father came from Burnham’s book, pages 148-50, including the account of his friendship with Lionel Barrymore. Observations from Mabel Dodge also came from Burnham’s book, pages 144—45. Included are some of the other famous patients of Jelliffe’s like Betty Compton and playwright Eugene O’Neill.

Chapter 10: The Alienist

Descriptions of Central Park were taken primarily from Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar’s
The Park and the People
(1992). Additional details like roasted corn in the handcarts came from various
New York Times
articles or studying historical photographs.

I found details about the various train routes and elevated trains from old photographs and historical maps from
www.nycsubway.org
, as well as in Clay McShane’s
Down the Asphalt Path
(1994). For typical foods sold or created during the 1920s, I again turned to online searches or looking at old menus, often on display in historic hotels.

The fact that 32,000 speakeasies existed during the 1920s came from Burns and Sanders’s book, page 318, but was also reported in the National Archives, which estimated anywhere between 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasies in New York City.

The article about the seminar on alcohol use and Jelliffe’s participation appeared in the
New York Times
(May 16, 1919). And Copeland’s remarks about cocaine use and draft dodgers appeared in the
New York Times
(April 15, 1919).

Information about the ways automobiles changed America, as well as the photograph of Fifth Avenue in 1900 and again in the 1920s, came from Sullivan’s book, page 375, and McShane’s book. The quote about disappearing surface travel and second-story sidewalks came from Sullivan’s book, page 368, but was originally quoted in the
New York World
(May 10, 1903).

The series of acts passed by Congress during that short time span include: Selective Service Act of 1917 (the draft), passed by Congress on May 18, 1917; the Espionage Act, passed June 15, 1917; and the Sedition Act (an amendment to the Espionage Act) passed on May 16, 1918.

Details about what became known as the First Red Scare came from New York
Times
coverage on April 30, May 1, May 2, and June 3 in 1919. In addition to those attacks, a post office in New York discovered sixteen packages with bombs, and in 1920 came the famed Wall Street explosion outside J. P. Morgan’s bank.

Other worries of the time period, like automobile deaths, came from Sullivan’s book, page 380, as did parental concerns of the age, pages 430-31.

The description of Adam was based on photos published in Jelliffe’s article “Postencephalitic Respiratory Disorders.” Details about Adam’s visits to Jelliffe’s office came from the same article, and again, all quotes are authentic.

The story of Dora Mintz, the New York woman who slept for over one hundred days before waking to the sound of a violinist playing Schubert’s “Serenade,” appeared in a
New York Times
article on January 21, 1920, and a London
Times
article on January 22, 1920.

All material about Dr. Oliver Sacks and the patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital came directly from
Awakenings
or the interview I conducted with him in December 2007. The quote about the inextricable link between psychiatry and neurology came from that interview.

Jelliffe’s letter to Freud was reprinted (along with most of his correspondence to Freud or Jung) in Burnham’s book, page 215.

Chapter 11: Only the Beginning

The
New York Times
provided coverage and details about Charles Lindbergh’s historic parade on June 13, 1927. Famous photographs, like the one that appeared in Burns and Sanders’s book, page 354, depicted the snowstorm of confetti and stock exchange tickers.

As I said in the book, there is no proof Adam attended the parade, but his meetings that week with Jelliffe did include accounts of attending parties, and it would have been surprising if a young man like Adam did not take part in the celebratory atmosphere of the city that week.

Jelliffe’s paper “Psychologic Components in Postencephalitic Oculogyric Crises” was published in the
Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry
21 (1929).

Descriptions of Jelliffe’s street, Fifty-sixth Street, came from personal observation—Jelliffe’s brownstone is still standing—and details about his office were depicted in photographs published in Burnham’s book. Information about Cornelius Vanderbilt’s recently demolished house came from Silver’s
Lost New York,
page 110.

Jelliffe’s account of Adam’s trance and quote appeared in his article “Psychological Components in Postencephalitic Oculogyric Crises.”

The quote from the New York neurologist Dr. Charles Burr appeared in the article, “The Mental Disorders of Childhood,”
AmericanJournalof Psychiatry
82 (July 1925).

The estimated nine thousand articles published on encephalitis lethargica during the epidemic or immediately following it came from Oliver Sacks and Joel Vilensky’s article, “Waking to a New Flu Threat,”
New York Times
(November 16, 2005).

The quote about “altered dispositions” came from a London Times article (October 13, 1922).

CASE HISTORY FOUR

Chapter 12: Jessie

The F. Scott Fitzgerald quote about the city in summer like overripened fruit came from
The Great Gatsby:
“I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.”

Descriptions of Penn Station were based on photographs published in Silver’s
Lost New York,
pages 32-38.

I found newsstand magazine covers by searching out vintage cover art online. For example, American author Ellis Parker Butler’s website,
www.ellisparkerbutler.com
, shows examples of his magazine cover stories, including the June 1925 cover for
Ladies’ HomeJournal.
Norman Rockwell’s
Saturday Evening Post
covers are now collector’s items for sale.
Good Housekeeping
and
Field and Stream
June 1925 covers were found through similar methods. Information about the first few copies of the
New Yorker,
which hit the stands in February 1925, was taken from its website:
www.newyorker.com
.

Descriptions of Glen Cove and the Morgan home there came from Ron Chernow’s excellent book
The House of Morgan
(1990). Photos of the estate are included in Chernow’s book. All personal and biographical information about the Morgans came from Chernow’s book, including their marriage, page 64; Jack’s early aspirations to be a doctor, page 64; Jack’s philandering father, page 98; Morgan’s relationship with Jessie and the fear of his father’s loveless fate, page 171; and the 1915 shooting in the Morgans’ Glen Cove home, pages 177 and 193.

Accounts of Jessie’s illness were covered briefly in Chernow’s book, page 267, but most details were taken from
New York Times
coverage during the summer of 1925: June 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, and 29 and July 3, 6, and 27. Each report indicated Jessie’s health was improving.

Jack Morgan’s quote about Jessie’s slow recovery appeared in Chernow’s book, page 268.

Just as coverage of Jessie’s illness was waning in the constant news cycle, the
New York Times
had to report her death in the August 15, 1925, issue. Details about her funeral and the posted notice were published in the
Times
(August 16, 1925). Details about the servants spread along the coast to keep reporters at bay came from the
Herald-Tribune
( June 18, 1925).

The account of Charles Rothschild’s case of encephalitis lethargica and eventual suicide came from Niall Ferguson’s
The House of Rothschild,
vol. 2,
The World’s Banker: 1849—1999
(2000), pages 451-52. Rothschild’s obituary was also published in the London
Times
(October 15, 1923).

In fact, suicide was fairly common in adults like Rothschild suffering from chronic symptoms. The
New York Times
reported that one woman committed suicide and left a note that said, “You will find my body in the lower lake.” And a student at Yale committed suicide by turning on the gas in his room.

Chernow’s book, page 268, offered further details about Jack Morgan’s reaction to Jessie’s death, tending to her garden, and keeping her bedroom exactly the same.

The Henry Riley Papers at Columbia’s Health Sciences Library described Tilney approaching Morgan for the $200,000 donation, which funded an entire floor of the Neurological Institute. In fact, Tilney would be credited with raising over one-half the contributions that helped build the new institute.

Chapter 13: 1925

The progress laws mentioned in this chapter include the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924; the Eighteenth Amendment, enacting Prohibition, passed on January 16, 1920; and the Nineteenth Amendment, allowing women the vote passed on August 18, 1920.

In 1949, Dr. Alexander Kennedy of Durham University, at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggested that “the great American gangster era of the late Twenties and early Thirties was linked with an epidemic of encephalitis which lasted from 1918 to 1926.” And Dary Matera’s book
John Dillinger
(2004) mentioned Kennedy’s theory on page 400, although there is no link between Dillinger himself and encephalitis lethargica.

Biographical information about presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge can be found on the White House’s website,
www.whitehouse.gov
. Biographers of Harding have written that his death may have been caused by stroke, pneumonia, exhaustion, food poisoning, or poisoning. It was the controversial—though popular—biography by Gaston Means entitled
The Strange Death of President Harding
(1930) that suggested Harding’s own wife could have been to blame. Means’s accusation was unfounded and is disregarded by most historians.