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Article: The family that dies of insomnia For 200 years, chronic insomnia has killed half the members of an Italian dynasty. The family's efforts to understand this bizarre illness has, by chance, helped unravel the causes of CJD - a disease scientists fear is on the rise. D.T. Max reports
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- May 20, 2001
- Author:
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Copyright informationCopyright 2001 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1791, in a small town near Venice, a man named Giacomo was
born. Members of his family tended to be physically impressive,
powerful and broad-shouldered (and still are today), but one day in
the autumn of 1836, at the age of 45, Giacomo fell mysteriously ill.
He began to suffer from dementia. Eventually he was confined to bed,
lying awake in torment. Then he died.
Over the next century and a half, his descendants flourished. But
running parallel with the family's affluence was an eerie record of
premature death. Parish books over the decades noted oddities such
as "epilepsy and fever" and "nervous gastric fever". Later, family
death certificates would name meningitis, Economo's disease, ...
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