EARLIEST ACCOUNT OF SLEEPING SICKNESS 3 



surgeon named John Atkins, called Physical Observa- 

 tions on the Coast of Gainey. 



The following extract is given in The Sleeping Sickness 

 Bulletin : 



" The Sleepy Distemper (common among negroes) 

 gives no other previous Notice, than a Want of Appetite 

 two or three Days before : Their Sleeps are sound, and 

 Sense of Feeling very little ; for pulling, drubbing, or 

 whipping, will scarce stir up Sense and Power enough 

 to move ; and the moment you cease beating, the Smart 

 is forgot, and down they fall again into a state of Insen- 

 sibility, driveling constantly from the Mouth, as if in a 

 deep Salivation ; breath slowly, but not unequally, nor 

 snort. 



** Young People are more subject to it than the Old ; 

 and the Judgement generally pronounced is Death, 

 the prognostick seldom failing. If now and then one 

 of them recovers, he certainly loses the little Reason he 

 had and turns Ideot. 



" The immediate Cause of this deadly Sleepiness in 

 the Slaves, is evidently a Super-abundance of Phlegm 

 or Serum extravated in the Brain, which obstructs the 

 Irradiation of the Nerves ; but what the procatartick 

 Causes are, that exert to this Production, eclipsing the 

 Light of the Senses, is not so easily assigned. 



" We find sometimes in Europe that Enormities in 

 the Non-Naturals, Surfeiting and Drunkenness do gradu- 

 ally, as Age and Custom advance, weaken the Tone of 

 the Brain, to the Admission of serous and extrementitious 

 Humours, including Sleepiness, etc. But here the Case 

 is different, they being young People that are generally 

 afflicted, and who have been destitute of the Means of 

 Surfeiting. 



" I shall ascribe the Cause to catching Cold, and their 

 Immaturity ; to Diet and Way of Living ; and to the natural 



