384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



out having taken the pains to relax the muscular contraction, it will 

 persist for a long time, and it will be almost impossible to put an end 

 to it until a new paroxysm of somnambulism has been brought on. 



The symptoms of this curious malady do not appear only among 

 women and persons afflicted with hysteria ; they are also observed, 

 though more rarely, among young persons and with aged men. Not 

 only do they arise when they are provoked ; they frequently appear 

 spontaneously, without any effort to induce them. Natural somnam- 

 bulism, which in former times greatly excited the curiosity of medical 

 men, is now a well-described affection. New examples of it are of 

 daily occurrence. Persons subject to it will get up in the middle of 

 the night, dress themselves, start to go out and attend to their busi- 

 ness. Their eyes are sometimes shut, sometimes wide open, but they 

 have no real sight. Their vision is all interior, but serves them so 

 good a purpose that they are able to find their way through the furni- 

 ture scattered around the room without a light. Memory is the uner- 

 ring guide of their movements. They can read mentally the book 

 which they open, and perform similar actions to those they would be 

 engaged in if they were awake as, for example, those of swimming, 

 running, writing, and handling arms. If they are suddenly wakened, 

 they will be stupefied at finding themselves up and dressed when they 

 had supposed that were reposing quietly in their beds. Instead of seek- 

 ing for something marvelous in these phenomena, would it not be better 

 to satisfy ourselves that they resemble those that we may observe in 

 ordinary sleep ? The mother, bending over the pillow of her sick child, 

 is able by means of her caresses and soft words to calm the spirit which 

 is distressed by the terrific visions of the nightmare, and make the child 

 sleep more sweetly without waking it. Sometimes, when we are half- 

 awake, half-asleep, as in the evening, for instance, when sleep weighs 

 upon us, or in the morning, when it has not quite left us, we act and 

 speak without being quite aware of what we are doing or saying. 

 This is a light degree of somnambulism ; and, if we will study our- 

 selves with a little care, we will recognize that, at the beginning or at 

 the end of sleep, the complete, exact consciousness of our actions and 

 our thoughts escapes us. There is, then, a series of insensible transi- 

 tions between the common general sleep of the world and the singular 

 sleep, more wonderful in appearance than in reality, of the somnam- 

 bulists and hysterical persons. 



Notwithstanding a whole class of positive facts exist, proved and 

 easy to verify, there are still some medical men who do not admit the 

 reality of them, and are ready to smile at the mention of somnambu- 

 lism as if a colossal deception were spoken of. In their view, all the 

 cases of this condition of sleep are nothing but comedies skillfully 

 played before too simple spectators by nervous women who have been 

 made fanatical by delirium. They believe this because they have been 

 satisfied with witnessing the acrobatic scenes which the magnetizers 



