A fascinating look at a bizarre, forgotten epidemic from the national bestselling author of The American Plague.

In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In t...

Buy Now From Amazon

A fascinating look at a bizarre, forgotten epidemic from the national bestselling author of The American Plague.

In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it arrived.

Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims-who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.

Similar Products

The Lassa Ward: One Man's Fight Against One of the World's Deadliest DiseasesSpitting Blood: The history of tuberculosisThe Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical MysteryPolio: An American StoryThe Woman with a Worm in Her Head: And Other True Stories of Infectious DiseaseFlu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused ItPox: Genius, Madness, And The Mysteries Of SyphilisRabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus