SLEEP AND ITS COUNTERFEITS. 601 



are often sufficiently developed in male subjects to justify us in class- 

 ing them in the hysterical category of nerve-sufferers. 



In this category " the Soho sleeper " deserves to hold a high place, 

 as will become manifest on reading the following condensed resume 

 of his history as given by Professor Charcot, in the " Progres Medical " 

 for March, 1886, and completed by some further details, published in 

 recent numbers of the " British Medical Journal " : 



Ch. was born in 1848, and his family history points to a strong neurotic 

 heredity. He served in the French army in Algeria ; and during the Franco- 

 German War received a wound in the left elbow which led to amputation of the 

 arm (1871). A few months later he was seized while at supper with uncon- 

 querable drowsiness, from which he could not be aroused. The next morning 

 he broke out into a terrific delirium that lasted two days. A second attack of 

 a similar nature occurred soon after. In 1875 he suffered from strange nervous 

 symptoms, and in 1878 had another attack of sleep, followed by a long period of 

 imperfect articulation. In 1880 he was seized again ; and in addition to com- 

 plete loss of speech, there was loss of feeling and movement of the left leg. He 

 remained six months under treatment. Since then there has been a series of 

 relapses, after one of which (1885) he came under the notice of Prof essor Charcot 

 in the Salpetriere Hospital. He was then found to have lost to a great extent 

 sensation on the left side of the body ; he could not articulate a single sound, 

 but could express himself freely by writing. He was troubled with nightmare, 

 in which the hallucinations of his former delirious seizures used to recur. He 

 recovered his speech quite suddenly, without passing through a period of stam- 

 mering as on former occasions. 



During the fifteen months that elapsed till his arrival in London, he seems 

 several times to have gone through his usual ordeal of sleep, followed by loss of 

 speech and paralysis of the left leg. The attack which he has just had, seems 

 to have been excited by the emotion he experienced on being robbed of all his 

 money (March 24th). The somnolent stage lasted about a fortnight, and was 

 followed with the usual paralytic and aphasic condition. During his torpor his 

 eyes were shut, and his general appearance was that of a man in a profound 

 sleep. He did not react to the loudest sounds ; but if a ray of light was cast 

 upon the pupil the eyelids gradually opened, and the eyeballs converged toward 

 the bright object. The results of various experiments made upon the patient 

 in his trance-like state illustrate several of the hypnotic phenomena already de- 

 scribed as observed in hystero-epileptic patients. His muscles presented both 

 the hyper-excitable and the plastic peculiarities that characterize the lethargic 

 and the cataleptic phases respectively of artificially-induced sleep, but with the 

 difference that they both coexisted, whether the eyes were shut or opened. 

 Certain phenomena of suggestion through the "muscular sense" could easily 

 be elicited. For instance, a series of movements imparted to the face, arm, or 

 leg was automatically repeated, and continued for an indefinite time. Again, 

 on imparting to his upper extremity an attitude of menace with outstretched 

 arm and clinched fist, his eyes (previously opened) suddenly turned toward the 

 limb, and he assumed an expression of anger verging on ferocity. I noticed 

 that on interposing an opaque object between the eyes and the arm, the latter 

 speedily relaxed and fell, the eyes closed, and the patient relapsed into his ac- 

 customed slumber. 



During the second week of the trance he began to obey orders repeatedly 



