sleeping sickness

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sleep·ing sick·ness • n. 1. a tropical disease caused by a parasitic protozoan (trypanosome) that is transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly. It causes fever, chills, pain in the limbs, and anemia, and eventually affects the nervous system causing extreme lethargy and death. See also trypanosomiasis.2. another term for encephalitis lethargica.

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