270 



SCIENCE. 



SLEEP AND SOMNAMBULISM* 

 By M. Regnard. 



[Translated From the French by the Marchjone»s Clara Lanza:] 

 II. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — In the middle ages and 

 up to the present century Somnambulists, together with 

 epileptics and hysterical women, were classed with sor- 

 cerers and those supposed to be possessed by the devil. 

 They were exorcised with others afflicted in similar ways 

 and generally burned alive with great ceremony and re- 

 joicing. 



During this unenlightened era, one man of genius 

 proved himself, in regard to Somnambulism, to be an ex- 

 ceptional observer and has left us a description of it which 

 no modern neurologist would repudiate. His name, 

 gentlemen, is upon your lips. It is Shakespeare who in 

 his tragedy of Macbeth has given us a masterly descrip- 

 tion of automatism. You are all familiar, doubtless, with 

 the sleep-walking scene, but I will recall a portion of it to 

 your mind. After having committed her terrible crimes 

 Lady Macbeth has attacks of Somnambulism. One of 

 her ladies in waiting informs the court physician and both 

 sit up at night to await the coming of the queen. 



" Gentlewoman — Lo you, here she comes ! This is 

 her very guise ; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe 

 her : stand close. 



Doctor. — How came she by that light ? 



Gentlewoman. — Why it stood by her : she has light by 

 her continually: 'Tis her command. 



Doctor. — You see her eyes are open. 



Gentlewoman. — Ay, but their sense is shut. 



Doctor. — What is it she does now? Look how she 

 rubs her hands. 



Gentlewoman. — It is accustomed action with her, to 

 seem thus washing her hands ; I have known her con- 

 tinue in this a quarter of an hour. 



Lady Macbeth. — Yet here's a spot. 



Doctor. — Hark ! She speaks : I will set down what 

 comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more 

 strongly. 



Lady Macbeth. — Out, damned spot! Out, I say! — 

 one ; two ; why, then, 'tis time to do 't : — Hell is murky ! 

 — Fie, my lord, fie ! A soldier and afeard ! What need 

 we fear who knows it, when none can tell our power to 

 account ?— Yet who would have thought the old man to 

 have had so much blood in him ? 



Doctor. — Do you mark that. , 

 Lady Macbeth. — The Thane of Fife had a wife ; where 

 is she now ? — What, will ihese hands ne'er be clean ? No 

 more o' that, my lord, no more o' that ; you mar all with 

 this starting. 



Doctor. — Go to, go to ; you have known what you 

 should not. 



Gentlewoman. — She has spoke what she should not, I 

 am sure of that ; heaven knows what she has known. 



Lady Macbeth. — Here's the smell of blood still ; all the 

 perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh ! 

 Oh! Oh! 



Doctor. — What a sigh is there ! The heart is sorely 

 changed. 



Gentlewoman. — I would not have such a heart in my 

 bosom for the dignity of the whole body. 



Doctor. — Well, well, well. 



Gentlewoman. — Pray God it be, sir. 



Doctor. — The disease is beyond my practice ; yet I have 

 known those which have walked in their sleep, who have 

 died holily in their beds. 



Lady Macbeth. — Wash your hands, put on your night- 

 gown ; look not so pale— I tell you yet again, Banquo's 

 buried ; he cannot come out of his grave. 



Doctor. — Even so. 



Lady Macbeth. — To bed, to bed ; there's knocking at 



*A lecture delivered before the Association Scientifique dc France. 



the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand ; 

 what's done, cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. 



Exit. 



Doctor. — Will she go now to bed ? 

 Gentlewoman. — Directly. 



Doctor. — Foul whisperings are abroad ; unnatural deeds 

 Do breed unnatural troubles. Infested minds 

 To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 

 More needs she the divine than the physician. 

 God, God, forgive us all ! Look after her: 

 Remove from her the means of all annoyance, 

 And still keep eyes upon her. So good night ; 

 My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight ; 

 I think but dare not speak. 



Gentlewoman. — Good night, good doctor. 



Gentlemen, do you not think this fine description con- 

 tains all the details I previously gave you, and that Shake- 

 speare has shown himself scientifically superior to all who 

 have hitherto attempted to represent this singular nervous 

 affection ? 



I have now finished what I had to say about natural 

 Somnambulism and find myself confronted by the most 

 difficult point of my subject, provoked or induced Som- 

 nambulism — Magnetism if you insist upon my employing 

 that detestable word. 



It is quite possible by means of various practices which 

 I shall make known to you later, to produce a nervous 

 affection very similar to Somnambulism, but yet differ- 

 ing from it in several ways. The effects obtained depend 

 of course upon the subject and the methods employed, 

 and the conditions resulting from these may be divided 

 into three, all of them however, being sometimes induced 

 in a single person. These three states are : 



1. Hypnotism. 



2. Sleep. 



3. Catalepsy. 



4. Automatism. 



Gentlemen, during the latter part of the foregoing cen- 

 tury an Austrian physician of great repute, seemingly, 

 arrived in Paris. His name was Mesmer and he had discov- 

 evered the means, by a purely physical process, of produc- 

 ing certain effects upon the human organism which were 

 considered to be perfectly prodigious. Mesmer appeared 

 first about the time when great excitement was being 

 caused by the first discoveries in electricity, made by the 

 Abbe Nollet, and when the singular action produced up- 

 on a magnetized needle by a fluid apparently permeating 

 the earth, attracted universal attention. Mesmer an- 

 nounced that he was master of another fluid which was 

 but a modification of the terrestrial one and which oper- 

 ated upon the vital forces, and when properly directed could 

 become a most important curative means. 



He made an offer to the government to sell his secret 

 which he estimated to be worth several million francs. 

 The French ministers, however, were prudent and al- 

 lowed Mesmer to keep the great mystery to himself. 



His method had nothing about it resembling real mag- 

 netism. His performances took place in a partially 

 darkened room in the middle ot which was placed a large 

 tub generally covered. A number of rods were placed 

 crosswise on the top around which the people sealed 

 themselves. Soon the sound of a piano was heard, 

 while the atmosphere grew heavy with perfumes. Mes- 

 mer walked about the toom with a prophetic air, touch- 

 ing the forehead of each person, and executing a series 

 of theatrical gestures. The subjects then fell into a 

 comatose state. They remained in ecstasy, almost entire- 

 ly deprived of sensibility and movement, and only recov- 

 ered under the influence of broad daylight and fresh air. 



There was not a bit of Magnetism in all this. The 

 subjects were generally hysterical women. Their im- 

 agination was greatly excited and the same thing recur- 

 red to them as now happens to those persons we hear of 

 as being afflicted with religious mania, etc. — they were 

 hypnotized. 



