Epidemic Neuromyasthenia

IN July, 1953, a sharp outbreak of a disease, which at first was thought to be poliomyelitis, occurred among student and supervisor nurses of a private psychiatric hospital near Washington, D. C. In a typical severe case the early manifestations included localized muscular weakness, stiffness of the neck and back, headache, diarrhea and temperature elevation. Within a few days it became apparent that the epidemiologic features and the course of the illness were not compatible with poliomyelitis and that we were dealing with an entity unknown to us. Before the few additional cases occurred in September among the newly arrived . . .