HYBERNATION AND STUPOR NOT SLEEP. 951 



greatly diminished,) with natural sleep ; for 

 what the ancients called the vital and natural 

 functions, Harvey the vegetative, and Bichat 

 the organic functions, still continue to go on, 

 while the temperature remains at the healthy 

 standard. But hybernation consists in a dimi- 

 nution or temporary suspension of vitality, which 

 as we have seen is augmented by genuine sleep. 

 Nor must we confound the sweet restorer of 

 nature, and " balm of hurt minds/' with the 

 stupor of apoplexy, epilepsy, trance, typhus, 

 and other forms of malignant fever, all of which 

 are attended with diminished respiration, san- 

 guification, nutrition, and growth. The blood 

 being imperfectly renovated and supplied with 

 caloric in the lungs, becomes of a dark colour 

 even in the arteries, and therefore unfit to main- 

 tain the activity of the brain, which falls into 

 what Dr. Billing very aptly terms " the coma of 

 inanition." The same condition is induced by 

 excessive loss of blood, a large abstraction of 

 caloric from the body, the inhalation of mephitic 

 gases, the use of opium, and other narcotics, or 

 by whatever greatly diminishes respiration, the 

 vital properties of the blood, and its power of 

 nourishing the solids. 



3 Q 



