The Family that Couldn't Sleep A Medical Mystery by D T Max

The stories read like Outer Limits plots: A Stone Age tribe in Papua New Guinea is decimated by a mysterious illness that afflicts its victims with laughter and then death. A noble Venetian family dynasty is cursed by a disease that turns them into insomniacs. Thousands of wild deer perish of starvation in high fields of grass. Unfortunately, these Ripley's Believe or Not -worthy episodes possess more than passing interest; they signal the advance guard of diseases that may lurk as time bombs around the globe. D. T. Max's The Family That Couldn't Sleep can be read as a fascinating study of brain proteins and neurological diseases or as a full-blast medical wake-up call.