Narcolepsy as a sequel of epidemic encephalitis is a rare although definite entity described by Economo,1 Stiefler,2 Symonds,3 Adie,4 and Kluge5 in Europe and by Spiller6 in America. As far as I am able to determine, Spiller's is the first and the present one is the second account in American literature of narcolepsy occurring as a postencephalitic phenomenon. Several other cases of so-called narcolepsy following encephalitis have been reported in the literature, but careful examination of the reports shows that these are not cases of true narcolepsy but merely inversions of the sleep rhythm with sleep occurring during the day. Also, many of these cases do not have the characteristic "Lachschlag" which the present one shows.
Narcolepsy was first described by Gelineau in 1880, and since then descriptions of the disease have been extremely inconsistent. It has been called by various names—Singer's "Hypnolepsie," Friedmann's