EVIDENCE PROVING THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE 125 



is reduced, i.e. the brain receives less Ether, or as it is 

 generally called, the temperature is lowered, we are 

 unconscious, the brain is passive, we mentally die 

 during the time of perfect sleep. 1 Moreover, when the 

 brain is in a partial state of irregular activity, we 

 dream. It is temporary madness. Some men live in 

 this condition, through abnormal conditions of the 

 brain, and we call them mad. 



Now, there are two important points to be observed. 

 First, the fibres from the cortical part of the brain 

 converge to a centre technically called the medulla 

 oblongata or spinal bulb. 2 And the second very im- 



reflex action in the original and restricted sense of the expression ; 

 they are simple, immediate, fatal and unfelt responses to unfelt peri- 

 pheral stimuli." ("An Introduction to Human Physiology," A. D. 

 Waller, M.D., F.R.S., 1896, p. 482.) 



1 " Sleep, on the contrary, is a negative state one in which these 

 processes are reversed. The brain is inactive; consciousness and 

 volition are in abeyance ; coincidently the central blood-supply is 

 diminished, the brain is smaller in size, and its temperature is 

 lowered." (" Chambers's Encyclopaedia," article " Sleep," 1892.) 



" The state of the cerebral circulation during sleep has been the 

 subject of some debate ; opposite opinions have been advanced, to the 

 effect that the brain is anaemic, or that it is congested. Although 

 there is no doubt that in coma a pathological state similar in some 

 respects to physiological sleep the cerebral vessels are congested, 

 the observations of Durham on the exposed cerebrum of sleeping 

 dogs, and of Jackson on the retinal vessels of sleeping infants, are 

 to the effect that vessels shrink in sleep, and we may therefore feel 

 reasonably assured that the sleeping brain, in common with other 

 resting. organs, receives less blood than in its state of activity." (" An 

 Introduction to Human Physiology," A. D. Waller, M.D., F.R.S., 

 1896, p. 570.) 



" It has been found further that the heat-production is least 

 during sleep, greatest during muscular exertion." (Idem, p. 283.) 



2 The immediate cause of death is always the stoppage of the 

 functions of one of three organs ; the cerebro-spinal nervous centre, 



