SLEEP AND ITS COUNTERFEITS. 603 



distribution ; and along with them are usually found other spots, usu- 

 ally on the opposite side of the body, pressure upon which awakes 

 the patient. We have here an undoubted argument in favor of the 

 view according to which attacks of sleep in certain hystero-epilep- 

 tics are mere modifications of the typical convulsive and delirious 

 seizure. 



The researches of Althaus have led him to formulate the axiom 

 that "nervous diseases are not, as is commonly asserted, more fre- 

 quent, but on the contrary less numerous, in large towns than in the 

 country, and it is probable that their occurrence is powerfully influ- 

 enced by race." He adduces a table in which the percentages of 

 deaths from nervous diseases (as recorded in the Registrar-General's 

 returns) for London, the southwestern counties, and Wales are 10*66, 

 11-20, 15-38, respectively. He has found that " Wales exceeds all 

 English counties so strikingly in this respect that neither density of 

 population, nor climate, nor difference of occupation will account for 

 that circumstance." He is therefore inclined to attribute this differ- 

 ence to another circumstance, viz., the difference of race a conclu- 

 sion that is borne out in a certain measure by the undoubted greater 

 prevalence of hysteroid symptoms among the Latin, and perhaps also 

 the Slav and other Eastern races, as compared with those of Germanic 

 origin. 



It is probably in considerations of this nature that we shall find an 

 answer to the question often asked in this country by those who do 

 not roundly attribute all or most of the symptoms of hystero-epilepsy 

 to shamming or exaggeration, " How is it that such cases never come 

 to our notice ? " Is it not because of those racial differences which 

 run deep in the nervous constitution of individuals ? At any rate the 

 presence of " the Soho sleeper " among us will, let us hope, modify the 

 somewhat insular skepticism still lurking among medical men on this 

 side of the Channel. 



The subject of prolonged sleep and trance is intimately connected 

 with that of apparent death. Though there is no doubt that most of 

 the dreadful tales concerning the premature burial of persons supposed 

 to be dead have no foundation, save in the imagination of the public, 

 we have ample proof of the possibility of such mistakes occurring in 

 the absence of a careful examination of the body. Every one has 

 heard of the fatal tragedy in which the greatest anatomist of his time, 

 Vesalius, played such an unfortunate part. Being called upon, dur- 

 ing his stay in Spain, to perform the autopsy of a patient who had 

 died suddenly, he proceeded to open the body, when, to the horror of 

 the bystanders, at the second sweep of the knife unmistakable signs 

 of life were given ! 



It is difficult to imagine how in the case of patients subject to cata- 

 leptic seizures, and known by their friends to be so, periods of sus- 

 pended animation, however protracted, could ever lead to premature 



