236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ploration of the Isthmus of Darien in 1854,* many of the mem- 

 bers of which perished slowly and horribly from sheer hunger 

 (thirst not being a factor in this case). The following paragraph 

 is given as an illustration : 



" From the time that food became scarce to the close, and just 

 in proportion as famine increased, they did not gloat over visions 

 of homely fare, but reveled in gorgeous dinners. So strangely 

 and strongly did this whim get possession of their minds, that the 

 hour of halting, when they could indulge undisturbed in these 

 rich reveries, became an object of the deepest interest. While, 

 hewing their way through the jungles, and wearied and over- 

 come, they were ready to sink, they would cheer each other up 

 by saying, ' Never mind, when we go into camp we'll have a splen- 

 did supper,' meaning, of course, the imaginary one they designed 

 to enjoy. Truxton and Maury would pass hours in spreading 

 tables loaded with every luxury they had ever seen or heard of. 

 Over this imaginary feast they would gloat with the pleasure of 

 a gourmand, apparently never perceiving the incongruity of the 

 thing. They would talk this over while within hearing of the 

 moans of the men, and on one occasion discussed the propriety of 

 giving up in future all stimulating drink, as they had been in- 

 formed it weakened the appetite. As hereafter they designed, if 

 they ever got out, to devote themselves entirely and exclusively 

 for the rest of their lives to eating, they soberly concluded that 

 it would be wrong to do anything to lessen its pleasures or 

 amount." 



" Absence of mind," of the results of which such remarkable 

 stories are current, must be cited also as an example of a transient 

 waking dream or species of reverie state. 



Under the next head a few words may first be expended upon 

 the class of lethargies or comatose sleeps arising from certain 

 diseases, such as apoj)lexies, epilepsy, paralysis, catalepsy, etc. 

 These have but remote analogies with natural sleep. In most of 

 them the brain, instead of being in the collapsed condition, partly 

 drained of blood, which occurs in real sleep, is overloaded and 

 congested with blood, and the resulting stupor is mostly absolute 

 and dreamless. Syncope or fainting has one point of analogy 

 with sleep namely, that it is accompanied by cephalic ansemia, 

 or loss of blood from the brain ; but this goes so much further 

 than in sleep, and the other symptoms, of decrease of general cir- 

 culation and of respiration, are so great, that there is no further 

 analogy. The insensibility of every sort during syncope is often 

 absolute. Paralysis may in some forms be regarded as a death- 



* A great part of this journal may be found in Harper's Magazine in 1881 (or there- 

 abouts). 



