Odds and Ends ... With Some Other Things

[IceWizard]

Things that make you go Hmmmmmm







Encephalitis lethargica was a baffling neurological illness that
emerged between 1915 and 1926. Patients typically began with
flu-like symptoms before slipping into deep lethargy,
and in severe cases lost the ability to move, speak, or respond—
conscious but effectively trapped within their own bodies.
Some individuals remained in this state for years, requiring
continuous care.The exact cause of encephalitis lethargica
was never conclusively identified.

Researchers debated whether it stemmed from a viral infection,
an autoimmune reaction, or some combination of factors, but no
firm explanation ever materialized.

The epidemic faded after the 1920s, though a small number
of chronic cases persisted.

A leading hypothesis connects the illness to the 1918 Spanish flu,
proposing that it may have been a post-viral neurological condition,
much like long COVID following SARS-CoV-2 or
shingles emerging long after chickenpox.

Even after decades of investigation,
scientists still lack a definitive answer for what triggered the
disease—or why it suddenly disappeared.



**************************************






Amou Haji, known worldwide as the “Dirtiest Man,” spent more than
sixty years refusing to bathe, convinced that soap and clean water
would make him ill. He lived completely outside normal hygiene
standards—eating roadkill, smoking out of metal pipes, and wandering
the Iranian countryside covered in soot and earth. Yet he survived
into his mid-90s, seemingly untouched by the infections people
expected he’d suffer. Then, after villagers finally convinced him to
bathe for the first time in decades,
he passed away just months later,
an eerie twist that only deepened his strange legend