ACTION PATTERNS 313 



ing, thus requiring a minimum of food an advantage 

 to the herbivora as well. Of all animals, the bird, 

 perhaps, is the most intensely conscious : it transforms 

 relatively the most energy and eats proportionally 

 most of all. 



In certain physiological states in which conscious- 

 ness is at a low ebb because of age or disease, there may 

 be noted a similar coincidence between diminished 

 consciousness and diminished motor adaptation. In 

 the senile, in the anemic and in patients with cerebral 

 softening, or in whom the brain is compressed as the re- 

 sult of a hemorrhage or a tumor, there exists a state 

 of diminished consciousness and a correspondingly 

 limited capacity for muscular action which is analo- 

 gous to these conditions in the newborn babe. It is of 

 further interest to note, in this connection, that in 

 these states of reduced consciousness, it requires but 

 a small amount of an anesthetic or narcotic to produce 

 unconsciousness or even death. In the aged, the 

 anemic or the newborn, a small dose of morphia 

 may be fatal. Conversely, the more intense the con- 

 sciousness, whether from emotion or injury, the greater 

 the amount of ether, nitrous oxid or morphia required 

 to produce unconsciousness. 



It would appear from these facts, that the mecha- 

 nism which is specifically influenced by anesthetics 

 and narcotics is the mechanism by means of which, in 

 a manner as yet unknown, normal sleep is produced. 

 It is obvious that consciousness is depressed in sleep ; 

 and that the phenomena of sleep muscular re- 

 laxation, incoordination, diminished consumption of 

 oxygen, diminished output of carbon dioxid, lowered 



