This disease turned 5,000,000 people 'into statues' and then was almost forgotten

There is a disease that turned five million people ‘into statues’ and then was almost completely forgotten about.

The mysterious disease put people into a catatonic state and began a worldwide issue in the early 1920s.

Encephalitis lethargica, or the sleeping sickness as it’s more commonly known, would turn people into immovable human statues.

Patients went into a coma-like state (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Some of the first signs of the disease would be a fever, sore throat, headache, lethargy or double vision.

In more severe cases, people would experience body weakness, muscle pains, tremors, psychosis and enter a coma-like state.

The cause of the outbreak, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, in the early 1920s remains a mystery to this day.

Some survivors continued to suffer severe lethargy and many remained in a sleep-like state for years.

Their situation was documented by Dr Oliver Sacks, a neurologist who treated people still suffering the effects of the sleeping sickness in the 1960s.

Sacks chronicled his work at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, New York, which was then published in a book titled Awakenings that went on to be turned into a feature film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

The disease eventually disappeared in the 1930s, but it’s still not known exactly why it vanished.

There have been various theories on the origins of the disease but these have not been confirmed.

Dr Oliver Sacks documented the mysterious condition (Sahm Doherty/Getty Images)

According to an article in the International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology: “Based on historical analysis and the more recent immunological data, it could be suggested that Encephalitis lethargica was an autoimmune encephalitis that arose in a secondary form to the action of a viral agent. It cannot be ruled out that this agent was a coronavirus.”

Many people have taken to social media to share their own thoughts on the mysterious disease.

One user wrote: “It is always disturbing when science cannot establish any answers to a disease that is still around.”

Another said: “It’s frankly worrying that such a serious illness can apparently appear from nowhere and then disappear. It puts me in mind of the English sweating sickness in the sixteenth century.”

A third person commented: “What I think is extra weird is that many people just died of the disease straight away. But some people were apparently cured and then years later turned into statues.”

And a fourth added: “Medusa came out of her grove for a couple years to f*** around.”