SLEEP AND ITS COUNTERFEITS. 597 



in old methods, and entail losses of capital and displacement from 

 occupation on the part of individuals. And yet the world wonders, 

 and commissions of great states inquire without coming to definite 

 conclusions, why trade and industry in recent years have been univer- 

 sally and abnormally disturbed and depressed. 



-- 



SLEEP AND ITS COUNTERFEITS. 



Br A. de WATTEVILLE, M. D. 



THE Frenchman, whose long trance or sleep attracted extraordi- 

 nary attention in the latter part of March and the beginning of 

 April, was commonly spoken of as " the Soho sleeper " ; but when we 

 speak of a man " sleeping " for several days or weeks consecutively, it 

 is obvious that we do not use the term in its ordinary sense. We all 

 know by experience what sleep is, and we can not conceive ourselves 

 as sleeping for an indefinite time. Yet it is difficult to draw a line be- 

 tween normal and abnormal sleep ; the physiological condition merges 

 by insensible degrees into all kinds of pathological states, known as 

 lethargy, trance, stupor, coma. Through the usual phenomena of 

 dreaming, we pass likewise into those of nightmare, somnambulism, 

 hypnotism, ecstasy, and the like. Yet it is important sharply to de- 

 fine typical instances of these conditions, so as to avoid hopeless con- 

 fusion in an already obscure field of scientific inquiry, and though we 

 may for the sake of convenience occasionally use the term sleep in the 

 wider sense, yet the distinction between the various states included 

 under it must be kept present to our minds. 



From the immense number of strange phenomena observed at the 

 Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, where this subject of hypnotism, espe- 

 cially in hysterical patients, has been investigated with the greatest 

 care, and where I have had the opportunity of studying it, I shall 

 adduce only such instances as have a direct bearing upon the case of 

 " the Soho sleeper." 



It is often possible to distinguish between a somnambulistic, a 

 lethargic, and a cataleptic condition of the hypnotized hysterical sub- 

 ject ; and by appropriate manipulations (all based on the theory of 

 influencing the brain-centers by sensory impressions) to make the sub- 

 ject pass from one to another of these states. Supposing we have, by 

 intently staring or by " passes," induced the lethargic state, we find 

 that the muscles and nerves of the subject are in a state of extreme 

 hyper-excitability. If we press through the skin with the finger, or a 

 pencil, upon a nerve-trunk, all the muscles supplied by that nerve are 

 instantly thrown into a state of violent contraction. This contraction, 

 strange to say, may, if unchecked, persist not only during the whole 

 of the period of lethargy, but may last for hours, or even days, after 



