| 释义 |
sleeping sickness
[sleeping vbl. n.]
1. In general and fig. senses.
1551R. Robinson tr. More's Utopia ii. M.v.r, Is there annye man so possessed wyth stonyshe insensibilitie, or with the sleping sicknes, that he wyll not graunt health to be acceptable to hym and delectable. 1647W. Jenkyn (title), A Sleeping Sicknes the distemper of the Times. 1904Jrnl. R. Microsc. Soc. Apr. 179 Sleeping Sickness of Silk-worms..is in no wise due to the micro-organisms of the mulberry leaves.
2. Path. Any of several similar diseases caused by protozoans of the genus Trypanosoma and transmitted by flies of the genus Glossina, prevalent in tropical Africa, and characterized by the proliferation of the trypanosomes in the blood and changes in the central nervous system leading to apathy, coma, and death. Also attrib.
1875Gore in Brit. Med. Jrnl. 2 Jan. 5/1 The Sleeping Sickness of Western Africa. 1897Manson in Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 485 Sleeping sickness is a disease of the central nervous system; beri-beri of the peripheral. 1905[see Gambia]. 1908W. S. Churchill My African Journey v. 96 On April 28th, 1903, Colonel Bruce, whose services had been obtained for the investigation of ‘sleeping sickness’.., announced that he considered the disease to be due to a kind of trypanosome, conveyed from one person to another by the bite of a species of tsetse-fly called Glossina palpalis. 1926Encycl. Brit. III. 558/1 Sleeping sickness is now treated by compounds of arsenic..; by compounds of antimony..; and by a drug of undisclosed composition called Bayer 205, or Germanin. 1958L. van der Post Lost World Kalahari (1961) vi. 109 A small African outpost on the edge of the sleeping sickness country of Northern Bechuanaland. 1970Passmore & Robson Compan. Med. Stud. II. xix. 7/2 Sleeping sickness in West Africa differs clinically and epidemiologically from the condition in East Africa. In the West, the disease generally runs a chronic course, in the East it is acute.
3. = sleepy sickness 2. Now rare.
1918Proc. R. Soc. Med. XII. (Med. Section) p. xvii, The term ‘sleeping sickness’..would not be an inappropriate name for this epidemic [sc. encephalitis]. 1920Lancet 13 Mar. 620/2 Some popular term for encephalitis lethargica less cumbrous than ‘lethargic encephalitis’ and free from the objection to ‘sleeping sickness’. 1921Times 3 Feb. 7/2 The Registrar-General's returns for the week..show that there were 21 cases of sleeping sickness (encephalitis lethargica) notified..in London alone. 1961L. E. Bollo Introd. Med. & Med. Terminol. xiv. 148 The von Economo type of encephalitis (encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness) is said to be of unknown etiology... African sleeping sickness, caused by protozoa of the genus Trypanosoma, is discussed later. |