March 5, 2026 • 11 mins
We sometimes go to curious lengths to test or understand the human body. This pair of stories will explain what I mean.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Picture the scene with me.
(00:37):
It's midwinter nineteen eighteen. The hospital ward is packed this season,
row upon row of ailing patients, light trembling, unable to
raise their heads, their faces fixed, eyes glazed, caught between
sleep and waking in an unnatural half dream state. Each
suffers from a disease that doctors have not yet understood,
encephalitis lethargica, or simply an illness concurrent with the influenza
(01:03):
just beginning to sweep the globe. But this disease, el
affecting between one and five million people worldwide, manifests differently
intense sleepwalking, ocular disturbances, and a motor skill impairment. Many
permanently developed Parkinson's like symptoms, and they call it the
sleeping sickness, and it kills between ten to thirty percent
(01:24):
of people infected. The first documented.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Cases came in nineteen sixteen, when Saint Petersburg, Paris, and
Vienna simultaneously reported an illness characterized by severe fatigue, fever,
and a disturbing ability to stay awake. It was thought
that refugees and soldiers of the Great War helped to
spread the disease across Europe. As cases rose, health officials
issued advisories that newspapers amplified, prompting the creation of isolation
(01:50):
wards to contain the influx of patients suffering, and citywide quarantines,
and naturally, the doctors were baffled, thinking that it might
be influenza or meningitis. Some even believe that it was
a form of mass psychiatric catatonia. Yet the profound lethargy,
involuntary eye rolling, muscle rigidity, and tremors didn't point to
(02:11):
any known illness, and so they prescribed what they could
rest bromides and watchful care in the hospital. Into this
confusion stepped Constantine von Econimo, a neurologist from the University
of Vienna. His background in sleep research made him particularly
adept at figuring out the problem of the epidemic. Through autopsies,
he was able to discover inflammation of the basal ganglia,
(02:34):
a region of the brain that regulates movement and behavior,
causing tremors and difficulties in movement. Over the course of time,
these acute symptoms progressed into a Parkinson's like chronic illness.
Van Econimo published a series of studies on the disease,
finally putting a name to it, the one I gave
you earlier, Encephalitis lethargica. The work was crucial to not
(02:55):
just understanding EL but also for future research into neuro
infectious diseases in general. In the mid nineteen twenties, the
influx of new cases had abruptly declined, and by the
end of nineteen twenty seven it had virtually disappeared from
hospital wards all over, and of course, many explanations were
put forward for this decline in cases. Maybe it was
(03:15):
possible that the population had acquired herd immunity, so the
disease was finding it harder and harder to find a host.
Another theory is that, like the Spanish influenza, it had mutated,
creating less virulent strains. Many recovered, although one percent of
patients did not, instead entering a chronic phase of the
illness that lasted for years. Decades later, a small handful
(03:37):
of these chronic sufferers remained in a catatonic sort of
fugue state, unable to speak or move. At Beth Abraham
Hospital in New York, a young neurologist named Oliver Sachs
observed patients that seemed to exhibit the same basal ganglia
condition that von Acanamo had first discovered. With more research
at his back, he thought that perhaps the symptoms were
caused by a deficiency of dopamine, a neurotransmitter of the works
(04:00):
as a sort of chemical messenger in the body, and
so he gave his patients a drug called Leveedopa to
boost their dopamine. The results were almost instantaneous and absolutely shocking.
Patients began waking up from the catatonia they had been
experiencing four years. They were able to move, walk, speak,
and express emotions. Although this was a temporary relief for
(04:21):
sufferers of el a revolutionized treatment and advanced the field's
understanding of dopamine's role in the brain. Years later, Sachs
would publish a book on the experiments called Awakenings, which
agreed with von Economo's studies, adding more modern information into
the mix, and the book was even made into a
famous film of the same name, starring Robin Williams as
(04:43):
Oliver Sachs and Robert de Niro as one of his patients.
The film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars,
scoring two statues for its writing and editing. The Sleeping
sickness has not returned in any real scale, although there
have been a number of scattered cases over the years
that very much was zembled it and advances in imaging
things like MRIs and pet scans now allow doctors to
(05:05):
actually see how EL works on the brain in real
time and try new medications to curb the possibility of
long term effects. Scientists are also using modern virus detecting
tools to hunt for any germs that may create a
similar effect in the infected. Honestly, science is utterly amazing.
Encephalitis lethargica stands as a singular, strange episode in modern
(05:28):
medical history, a pandemic that disappeared almost as quickly as
it arrived. Of course, scientists today are still trying to
fully understand the disease that affected so many. Because illnesses
may come and go, but as long as we have
skilled and experienced scientists to protect us. All of us
have hope. At the top of the page, the title
(06:02):
Letter of Condolence is written in shaky black ink. Beneath
it a short message explaining that your registration was approved.
You're one of forty applicants chosen to participate in this race,
hand selected out of thousands. The letter contains a set
of coordinates which will require you to trek deep into
the Appalachian wilderness, beyond the reach of any GPS signal,
(06:23):
with no idea if you're going in the right direction,
and that's just to get to the starting line. It
may sound intense, but that's just what it's like for
the runners of the Barkley Marathons, the world's most mysterious
ultra marathon. Now, the word ultra marathon might sound redundant.
After all, running a marathon is an impressive feat all
on its own, but an ultra marathon, which refers to
(06:44):
any race longer than twenty six point two miles, is
more of an extreme sport. Barkley's Marathons were created by
a lifelong runner named Lazarus, whose real name is Gary Cantrell.
It was created in partnership with a group of his
running buddies. But I have to tell you the origins
of the race are a lot darker than one might expect.
(07:05):
The story begins with a failed prison escape. James Earl Ray,
the man convicted of assassinating doctor Martin Luther King, Junior,
was held in a Memphis prison after his arrest in
nineteen sixty eight. But James Earl Ray escaped prison almost
ten years later for a total of fifty four hours.
Over the course of those fifty four hours, though, he
covered eight miles of wilderness before being recaptured. And this
(07:28):
is where the dark part of the story comes in.
Because doctor King was a civil rights visionary and legend,
and rather than lament his killer's escape, Gary Kentrell and
his friends allegedly laughed about it. One man even said
that eight miles was a pathetic amount of distance to
run when you'd escaped prison, especially in fifty four hours.
And Gary Cantrell himself well, he argued that in that
(07:50):
time through the same wilderness he could run one hundred
and from there. Gary Cantrell charted a rough path one loop,
roughly twenty miles long, through uncharted at Balacha, covering dense brush,
rocky inclines, and even a mountain trek. Contestants would complete
the twenty ish mile loop five times for an approximate
total of one hundred miles. With a cutoff time of
(08:12):
sixty hours, runners would risk exposure wild animals, sleep deprivation, dehydration,
and most significantly, going off course. In twenty seventeen, for example,
runner Gary Robbins missed the sixty hour cutoff time by
less than a minute after getting lost on his final lap,
and in two thousand and six, one contestant became lost
(08:32):
only two miles into the race and spent thirty two
hours in the wilderness trying to find his way back.
Since Barkley's marathons take place in protected forests and parks,
spectators are not allowed on the course and strongly discouraged
even at the start or finish line. In fact, the
twenty mile course has only two water stations, and most
contestants never find either of them. Each lap begins and
(08:55):
ends at a yellow trail gate, where Lazarus waits to
document each runner's time. Some runners nap for about twenty
minutes after each loop, the only rest they get during
the entire sixty hour race. The race also forbids the
use of GPS. Instead, runners must use their own hand
drawn maps made from Cantrell's description of the route, which
often includes sections named ratjaw or meat grinder. By now,
(09:19):
you might be starting to see why Cantrell calls the
registration tickets a letter of condolence. But how does anyone
know if a runner actually completes the course if no
one is around to watch. Well, every few miles, Cantrell
places books somewhere along the route. At the start of
each twenty mile loop, Cantrell assigns runners a new page
number they must collect from each book to prove they've
(09:40):
completed the planned course. And I know that in theory
that might not sound hard, but remember that these races
don't take place on a trail. The Barkley Marathons require
runners to complete the full course with almost no idea
if they're even on the right track. You might not
be surprised to hear that most years no one finishes
the race at all, and Cantrell says that's just fine
(10:00):
with him. He knows that the event attracts the most
elite athletes and thinks failure is an important part of
their growth. As runners and as people. Twenty twenty four,
is race set the record with the grand total of
five finishers. Two of the finishers had completed the race
in past years, but the most notable of the group
was Jasmine Paris. Jasmine became the first woman to complete
(10:20):
the race, finishing ninety nine seconds before.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The cutoff time.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
For most of us, this whole race probably sounds like
a nightmare, But if you're someone who's got what it
takes to run of Barkley's Marathon, the story might sound
like the challenge you've been looking for. And if you
do decide to sign up for the race, may I
offer you my own condolences. I hope you enjoyed today's
(10:45):
guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was
created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
the people who make it oh. If you're at Grimandmild
dot com slash Curiosities, you'll also find a link to
the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores
(11:08):
and online as well as ebook and audiobook. And if
you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon.
It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for
a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over
at patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and until next time,
stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Picture the scene with me.
(00:37):
It's midwinter nineteen eighteen. The hospital ward is packed this season,
row upon row of ailing patients, light trembling, unable to
raise their heads, their faces fixed, eyes glazed, caught between
sleep and waking in an unnatural half dream state. Each
suffers from a disease that doctors have not yet understood,
encephalitis lethargica, or simply an illness concurrent with the influenza
(01:03):
just beginning to sweep the globe. But this disease, el
affecting between one and five million people worldwide, manifests differently
intense sleepwalking, ocular disturbances, and a motor skill impairment. Many
permanently developed Parkinson's like symptoms, and they call it the
sleeping sickness, and it kills between ten to thirty percent
(01:24):
of people infected. The first documented.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Cases came in nineteen sixteen, when Saint Petersburg, Paris, and
Vienna simultaneously reported an illness characterized by severe fatigue, fever,
and a disturbing ability to stay awake. It was thought
that refugees and soldiers of the Great War helped to
spread the disease across Europe. As cases rose, health officials
issued advisories that newspapers amplified, prompting the creation of isolation
(01:50):
wards to contain the influx of patients suffering, and citywide quarantines,
and naturally, the doctors were baffled, thinking that it might
be influenza or meningitis. Some even believe that it was
a form of mass psychiatric catatonia. Yet the profound lethargy,
involuntary eye rolling, muscle rigidity, and tremors didn't point to
(02:11):
any known illness, and so they prescribed what they could
rest bromides and watchful care in the hospital. Into this
confusion stepped Constantine von Econimo, a neurologist from the University
of Vienna. His background in sleep research made him particularly
adept at figuring out the problem of the epidemic. Through autopsies,
he was able to discover inflammation of the basal ganglia,
(02:34):
a region of the brain that regulates movement and behavior,
causing tremors and difficulties in movement. Over the course of time,
these acute symptoms progressed into a Parkinson's like chronic illness.
Van Econimo published a series of studies on the disease,
finally putting a name to it, the one I gave
you earlier, Encephalitis lethargica. The work was crucial to not
(02:55):
just understanding EL but also for future research into neuro
infectious diseases in general. In the mid nineteen twenties, the
influx of new cases had abruptly declined, and by the
end of nineteen twenty seven it had virtually disappeared from
hospital wards all over, and of course, many explanations were
put forward for this decline in cases. Maybe it was
(03:15):
possible that the population had acquired herd immunity, so the
disease was finding it harder and harder to find a host.
Another theory is that, like the Spanish influenza, it had mutated,
creating less virulent strains. Many recovered, although one percent of
patients did not, instead entering a chronic phase of the
illness that lasted for years. Decades later, a small handful
(03:37):
of these chronic sufferers remained in a catatonic sort of
fugue state, unable to speak or move. At Beth Abraham
Hospital in New York, a young neurologist named Oliver Sachs
observed patients that seemed to exhibit the same basal ganglia
condition that von Acanamo had first discovered. With more research
at his back, he thought that perhaps the symptoms were
caused by a deficiency of dopamine, a neurotransmitter of the works
(04:00):
as a sort of chemical messenger in the body, and
so he gave his patients a drug called Leveedopa to
boost their dopamine. The results were almost instantaneous and absolutely shocking.
Patients began waking up from the catatonia they had been
experiencing four years. They were able to move, walk, speak,
and express emotions. Although this was a temporary relief for
(04:21):
sufferers of el a revolutionized treatment and advanced the field's
understanding of dopamine's role in the brain. Years later, Sachs
would publish a book on the experiments called Awakenings, which
agreed with von Economo's studies, adding more modern information into
the mix, and the book was even made into a
famous film of the same name, starring Robin Williams as
(04:43):
Oliver Sachs and Robert de Niro as one of his patients.
The film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars,
scoring two statues for its writing and editing. The Sleeping
sickness has not returned in any real scale, although there
have been a number of scattered cases over the years
that very much was zembled it and advances in imaging
things like MRIs and pet scans now allow doctors to
(05:05):
actually see how EL works on the brain in real
time and try new medications to curb the possibility of
long term effects. Scientists are also using modern virus detecting
tools to hunt for any germs that may create a
similar effect in the infected. Honestly, science is utterly amazing.
Encephalitis lethargica stands as a singular, strange episode in modern
(05:28):
medical history, a pandemic that disappeared almost as quickly as
it arrived. Of course, scientists today are still trying to
fully understand the disease that affected so many. Because illnesses
may come and go, but as long as we have
skilled and experienced scientists to protect us. All of us
have hope. At the top of the page, the title
(06:02):
Letter of Condolence is written in shaky black ink. Beneath
it a short message explaining that your registration was approved.
You're one of forty applicants chosen to participate in this race,
hand selected out of thousands. The letter contains a set
of coordinates which will require you to trek deep into
the Appalachian wilderness, beyond the reach of any GPS signal,
(06:23):
with no idea if you're going in the right direction,
and that's just to get to the starting line. It
may sound intense, but that's just what it's like for
the runners of the Barkley Marathons, the world's most mysterious
ultra marathon. Now, the word ultra marathon might sound redundant.
After all, running a marathon is an impressive feat all
on its own, but an ultra marathon, which refers to
(06:44):
any race longer than twenty six point two miles, is
more of an extreme sport. Barkley's Marathons were created by
a lifelong runner named Lazarus, whose real name is Gary Cantrell.
It was created in partnership with a group of his
running buddies. But I have to tell you the origins
of the race are a lot darker than one might expect.
(07:05):
The story begins with a failed prison escape. James Earl Ray,
the man convicted of assassinating doctor Martin Luther King, Junior,
was held in a Memphis prison after his arrest in
nineteen sixty eight. But James Earl Ray escaped prison almost
ten years later for a total of fifty four hours.
Over the course of those fifty four hours, though, he
covered eight miles of wilderness before being recaptured. And this
(07:28):
is where the dark part of the story comes in.
Because doctor King was a civil rights visionary and legend,
and rather than lament his killer's escape, Gary Kentrell and
his friends allegedly laughed about it. One man even said
that eight miles was a pathetic amount of distance to
run when you'd escaped prison, especially in fifty four hours.
And Gary Cantrell himself well, he argued that in that
(07:50):
time through the same wilderness he could run one hundred
and from there. Gary Cantrell charted a rough path one loop,
roughly twenty miles long, through uncharted at Balacha, covering dense brush,
rocky inclines, and even a mountain trek. Contestants would complete
the twenty ish mile loop five times for an approximate
total of one hundred miles. With a cutoff time of
(08:12):
sixty hours, runners would risk exposure wild animals, sleep deprivation, dehydration,
and most significantly, going off course. In twenty seventeen, for example,
runner Gary Robbins missed the sixty hour cutoff time by
less than a minute after getting lost on his final lap,
and in two thousand and six, one contestant became lost
(08:32):
only two miles into the race and spent thirty two
hours in the wilderness trying to find his way back.
Since Barkley's marathons take place in protected forests and parks,
spectators are not allowed on the course and strongly discouraged
even at the start or finish line. In fact, the
twenty mile course has only two water stations, and most
contestants never find either of them. Each lap begins and
(08:55):
ends at a yellow trail gate, where Lazarus waits to
document each runner's time. Some runners nap for about twenty
minutes after each loop, the only rest they get during
the entire sixty hour race. The race also forbids the
use of GPS. Instead, runners must use their own hand
drawn maps made from Cantrell's description of the route, which
often includes sections named ratjaw or meat grinder. By now,
(09:19):
you might be starting to see why Cantrell calls the
registration tickets a letter of condolence. But how does anyone
know if a runner actually completes the course if no
one is around to watch. Well, every few miles, Cantrell
places books somewhere along the route. At the start of
each twenty mile loop, Cantrell assigns runners a new page
number they must collect from each book to prove they've
(09:40):
completed the planned course. And I know that in theory
that might not sound hard, but remember that these races
don't take place on a trail. The Barkley Marathons require
runners to complete the full course with almost no idea
if they're even on the right track. You might not
be surprised to hear that most years no one finishes
the race at all, and Cantrell says that's just fine
(10:00):
with him. He knows that the event attracts the most
elite athletes and thinks failure is an important part of
their growth. As runners and as people. Twenty twenty four,
is race set the record with the grand total of
five finishers. Two of the finishers had completed the race
in past years, but the most notable of the group
was Jasmine Paris. Jasmine became the first woman to complete
(10:20):
the race, finishing ninety nine seconds before.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The cutoff time.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
For most of us, this whole race probably sounds like
a nightmare, But if you're someone who's got what it
takes to run of Barkley's Marathon, the story might sound
like the challenge you've been looking for. And if you
do decide to sign up for the race, may I
offer you my own condolences. I hope you enjoyed today's
(10:45):
guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was
created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
the people who make it oh. If you're at Grimandmild
dot com slash Curiosities, you'll also find a link to
the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores
(11:08):
and online as well as ebook and audiobook. And if
you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon.
It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for
a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over
at patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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