There are only a few such families, but their fate is tragic: people who are struck down by fatal insomnia are waiting for months of sleepless nights and severe exhaustion. Can medicine save their lives?
Silvano was traveling on a cruise ship when the family curse overtook his family. The elegant 53-year-old man with bright red hair loved to wear a tuxedo for any suitable occasion and take pictures with his favorite movie actors. But that night, during a dance party on the ship, he was embarrassed to find that his expensive shirt was soaked through with sweat - even wring it out.
Silvano hurried to the cabin and stood in front of the mirror: indeed, the pupils of his eyes contracted to two tiny black dots. The same glazed look that he once observed in his father and two sisters, at the very beginning of the development of a mysterious family ailment.
He knew this was just the beginning. Then the whole body will begin to shake, then complete helplessness … But the most terrible symptom of the disease will be insomnia - almost absolute, for months. This is a kind of "waking coma" that will inevitably end in death.
Silvano turned to sleep specialists at the University of Bologna, who immediately began investigating the case. But he had no illusions. "I know that I will stop sleeping and die in eight or nine months," he told Dr. Pietro Cortelli."
"Why are you so sure of this?" the doctor asked. Silvano then drew his family tree from the 18th century from memory. In each generation, he named the names of ancestors who suffered the same fate.
Unfortunately, Silvano was not mistaken - less than two years later, he died, bequeathed his brain to scientists for research, in the hope that they will someday be able to figure out the reasons and find a cure for the strange ailment that plagues his family.
Promotional video:
Patient Zero
For a long time, the Silvano family tried not to expand on the family fatal insomnia. And only 15 years ago they decided to tell the story of the "ancestral curse" to the writer DT Max, who as a result wrote a book called "The Family That Could Not Sleep" - about people living in fear of their own genes.
While searching for "Patient Zero", Max discovered documents describing the illness of a Venetian doctor who, at some point in his life in the late 18th century, fell into a prolonged state of daze. Soon, the same affliction struck his nephew Giuseppe, and then passed on to his sons Angelo and Vincenzo. Then the same misfortune began to be inherited from generation to generation, until it got to Silvano's father named Pietro - he died during the Second World War.
Despite the incessant series of losses, the family tried not to talk about the "curse" so as not to "tempt fate." However, that all changed in the 1980s when Silvano developed symptoms of fatal insomnia. His niece was married to Dr. Ignacio Reuter, an excellent scientist, who persuaded a relative to show up to the specialists of the famous University of Bologna sleep clinic.
Research
Unfortunately, the clinic's specialists were unable to save Silvano and two other members of his family, who died shortly after him. However, thanks to the research carried out during this time, scientists were able to find the "culprit" of the family nightmare. It turned out to be a virus-like agent, prion, which is formed in the brain due to a small genetic mutation. The disease affects the optic hillock the size of a hazelnut. For Silvano, this "nut" looked like it had been eaten by worms.
Now experts already know why and how the symptoms of the disease that follow the Silvano family arise and are developing a treatment. So far, complete healing has not been achieved, but the next victim of the "curse" named Daniel, through the efforts of doctors, lived after the appearance of the first symptoms for several years longer than his predecessors.