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farmer having done so alongside of a young lady, who was playing on the harp for his amusement. The cause of this constitutional disposition to doze upon every occasion, seems to be a certain want of activity in the brain, the result of which is, that the individual is singuiariy void of fire, energy, and passion. He is of a phlegmatic temperament, generally a great eater, and very destitute of imagination Such are the general characteristics of those who are predisposed to drowsiness: the cases where such a state coexists with inteltectual energy are few in number.

Boerhaave speaks of an eccentric physician who took it into his head that sleep was the natural state of man, and accordingly slept eighteen hours out of the twentyfour-till he died of apoplexy, a disease which is always apt to be produced by excessive sleep.

Cases of constitutional drowsiness are in a great measure without remedy, for the soporific tendency springs from some natural defect, which no medicinal

means can overcome.

Equally impossible of cure is the affection when it arises, as it very often does, from old age. Even long before this period of life, as at the age of fifty or sixty, people very often get into somnolent habits, and are pretty sure to fall asleep if they attempt to read, or even if they place themselves in an easy chair before the fire. I know of no cure for this indolent propensity, unless indeed the habits arise, as it sometimes does, from corpulency, in which case it is more manageable, in so far as its cause is occasionally capable of being removed.

Drowsiness sometimes proceeds from a fulness of blood in the head, or a disordered state of the digestive organs. When it originates from the former cause, it becomes necessary to have recourse to general or local blood-letting. The person, likewise, should use, from time to time, mild laxatives, live temperately, and take abundance of exercise. Medicines of a similar kind are necessary when the affection arises from the state of the stomach and bowels: so soon as these organs are restored to health, the symptomatic drowsiness will naturally disappear.

Persons who feel the disposition to drowsiness gaining upon them, should struggle vigorously against it; for when once the habit is fairly established, its eradication is very difficult. Exercise of body and mind, early rising and the cold bath, are among the best means for this purpose.

CHAPTER XI.

PROTRACTED SLEEP.

hand; and, by pointing to her mouth, signified a wish for food. She took readily what was given to her; still she discovered no symptoms of hearing, and made no other kind of bodily movement than of her left hand. Her right hand and arm, particularly, appeared completely dead, and bereft of feeling; and even when pricked with a pin, so as to draw blood, never shrunk in the least degree. At the same time, she instantly drew back her left arm whenever it was touched by the point of the pin. She continued to take food whenever it was offered to her. For the first two weeks, her pulse generally stood at 50, during the third and fourth week, about 60; and on the day before her recovery, at 70 or 72. Her breathing was soft and almost imperceptible, but during the night-time she occasionally drew it more strongly, like a person who has first fallen asleep. She evinced no symptom of hearing, till about four days before her recovery. On being interrogated, after this event, upon her extraordinary state, she mentioned that she had no knowledge of any thing that had happened-that she had never been conscious of either having needed or received food, or of having been blistered; and expressed much surprise on finding her head shaved. She had merely the idea of having passed a long night in sleep.

The case of Elizabeth Perkins is also remarkable. In the year 1788, she fell into a profound slumber, from which nothing could arouse her, and remained in this state for between eleven and twelve days, when she awoke of her own accord, to the great joy of her relatives, and wonder of the neighbourhood. On recovering, she went about her usual business; but this was only for a short period, for in a week after she relapsed again into a sleep which lasted some days. She continued, with occasional intervals of wakefulness, in a dozing state for several months, when she expired.

There was lately at Kirkheaton a remarkable instance of excessive sleep. A poor paralytic, twenty years of age, was seldom, for the period of twelve months, awake more than three hours in the twentyfour. On one occasion, he slept for three weeks; he took not a particle of either food or drink; nothing could rouse him, even for a moment; yet his sleep appeared to be calm and natural.

The case of Elizabeth Armitage of Woodhouse, near Leeds, may also be mentioned. The age of this person was sixty-nine years. She had been for several months in a decline, during which she had taken very little sustenance, when she fell into a state of lethargic stupor, on the morning of the 1st of July, 1827, in which condition she remained, without uttering one word, receiving any food, or showing any signs of life, except breathing, which was at times almost imperceptible. În this state she continued for eight days, when she ex

I have already mentioned a few instances of indivi-pired without a groan. duals remaining for days or weeks in a state of profound sleep. The nature of this extraordinary affection is in a great measure, unknown; it arises, in most cases, without any obvious cause, generally resists every method that can be adopted for removing it, and disappears of its own accord.

The case of Mary Lyall, related in the 8th volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,' is one of the most remarkable instances of excessive somnolency on record. This woman fell asleep on the morning of the 27th of June, and continued in that state till the evening of the 30th of the same month, when she awoke, and remained in her usual way till the 1st of July, when she again fell asleep, and continued so till the the 8th of August. She was bled, blistered, immersed in the hot and cold bath, and stimulated in almost every possible way, without having any consciousness of what was going on. For the first seven days she continued motionless, and exhibited no inclination to eat. At the end of this time she began to move her left

Excessively protracted sleep may ensue from the injudicious use of narcotics. A very striking instance of this kind occurred on 17th February, 1816, near Lymington. In consequence of a complaint with which a child had been painfully afflicted for some time previous, its mother gave it an anodyne, (probably laudanum,) for the purpose of procuring it rest. sequence was, that it fell into a profound sleep, which continued for three weeks. In this case, in addition to an excessive dose, the child must have possessed some constitutional idiosyncrasy, which favoured the operation of the medicine in a very powerful manner.

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One of the most extraordinary instances of excessive sleep, is that of the lady of Nismes, published in 1777, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin.' Her attacks of sleep took place periodically, at sunrise and about noon. The first continued till within a short time of the accession of the second, and the second till between seven and eight in the evening -when she awoke, and continued so till the next sunrise. The most extraordinary fact connected with this

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tain Franklin, as fast as they were taken out of the nets, and in a short time became a solid mass of ice, and by a blow or two of the hatchet were easily split open, when the intestines might be removed in one lump. If, in this completely frozen state, they were thawed before the fire, they recovered their animation.' Sheep sometimes remain for several weeks in a state of tor

case is, that the first attack commenced always at daybreak, whatever might be the season of the year, and the other always immediately after twelve o'clock. During the brief interval of wakefulness which ensued shortly before noon, she took a little broth, which she had only time to do, when the second attack returned upon her, and kept her asleep till the evening. Her sleep was remarkably profound, and had all the charac-pitude, buried beneath wreaths of snow. Swallows ters of complete insensibility, with the exception of a feeble respiration, and a weak but regular movement of the pulse. The most singular fact connected with her remains to be mentioned. When the disorder had lasted six months, and then ceased, she had an interval of perfect health for the same length of time. When it lasted one year, the subsequent interval was of equal duration. The affection at last wore gradually away; and she lived, entirely free of it, for many years after. She died in the eighty-first year of her age, of dropsy, a complaint which had no connexion with her preceding disorder.

There are a good many varieties in the phenomena of protracted sleep. In some cases, the individual remains for many days without eating or drinking; in others, the necessity for these natural wants arouses him for a short time from his slumber, which time he employs in satisfying hunger and thirst, and then instantly gets into his usual state of lethargy. The latter kind of somnolency is sometimes feigned by impostors for the purpose of extorting charity; on this account, when an instance of the kind occurs, it should be narrowly looked into, to see that there is no deception.

The power possessed by the body of subsisting for such a length of time in protracted sleep, is most remarkable, and bears some analogy to the abstinence of the polar bear in the winter season. It is to be observed, however, that during slumber, life can be supported by a much smaller portion of food than when we are awake, in consequence of the diminished expenditure of the vital energy which takes place in the former state.

All that can be done for the cure of protracted somnolency, is to attempt to rouse the person by the use of stimuli, such as blistering, pinching, the warm or cold bath, the application of sternutatories to the nose, &c. Blooding should be had recourse to, if we suspect any apopletic tendency to exist. Every means must be employed to get nourishment introduced into the stomach; for this purpose, if the sleeper cannot swallow, nutritious fluids should be forced, from time to time, into this organ by means of Jukes' pump, which answers the purpose of filling as well as evacuating it.

CHAPTER XII.

SLEEP FROM COLD.

This kind of sleep is so peculiar, that it requires to be considered separately. The power of cold in occasioning slumber, is not confined to man, but pervades a very extensive class of animals. The hybernation, or winter torpitude of the brown and Polar bear, results from this cause. Those animals continue asleep for months; and do not awake from their apathy till revived by the genial temperature of spring. The same is the case with the hedgehog, the badger, the squirrel, and several species of the mouse and rat tribes, such as the dormouse and marmot: as also with the land tor

are occasionally in the same state, being found torpid and insensible in the hollows of trees, and among the ruins of old houses during the winter season; but with birds this more rarely happens, owing, probably, to the temperature of their blood being higher than that of other animals, and thereby better enabling them to resist the cold. Almost all insects sleep in winter. This is particularly the case with the crysalis, and such grubs as cannot, at that season, procure their food. In hybernating animals, it is impossible to trace any peculiarity of structure which disposes them to hybernate, and enables life to be sustained during that pe riod. So far the subject is involved in deep obscurity. According to Dr Edwards, the temperatore of such animal sinks considerably during sleep, even in

summer.

Want of moisture produces torpor in some animals. This is the case with the garden snail, which revives if a little water is thrown on it. Snails, indeed, have revived after being dried for fifteen years. Mr Baucer has restored the vibris tritici (a species of worm) after perfect torpitude and apparent death for five years and eight months by merely soaking it in water. The furcularia anostobea, a small microscopic animal, may be killed and revived a dozen times by drying it and then applying moisture. According to Spallanzami animalculi have been recovered by moisture after a torpor of twenty-seven years. Larger animals are thrown into the same state from want of moisture. Such according to Humboldt, is the case with the alligator and boa constrictor during the dry season in the plains of Venezuela, and with the centenes solosous, a species of hedge hog found in Madagascar; so that dryness as well as cold, produces hybernation, if, in such a case, we may use that term.

The power of intense cold in producing sleep, is very great in the human subject, and nothing in the winter season is more common than to find people lving dead in fields and on the high highways from such a cause. An overpowering drowsiness steals upon them, and if they yield to its influence death is almost unevitable. This is the particularly the case in snowstorms, in which it is often impossible to get a place of

shelter.

This state of torpor, with the exception perhaps of catalepsy, is the most perfect sleep that can be imagin ed: it approaches almost to death in its apparent annihilation of the animal functions. Digestion is at an end, and the secretions and excretions suspended nothing seems to go on but circulation, respiration and absorption. The two former are extremely languid,* but the latter tolerably vigorous, if we may judge from the quantity of fat which the animal loses during its torpid state. The bear, for example, on going to its wintry rest, is remarkably corpulent, on awaking from it, quite emaciated; in which state, inspired by the pangs of hunger. it sallies forth with redoubled fury upon its prey. Life is sustained by the absorption of this fat, which for months serves the animal as provision. Such emaciation, however, is not common to all hybernating animals, some of whom lose little or nothing by their winter torpitude.

Hybernation may be prevented. Thus the polar bear in the menagerie at Paris never hybernated; and

toise, the frog, and almost all the individuals of the
lizard, insect, and serpent tribes. Fishes are often
found imbedded in the ice, and though in a state of
apparent death, become at once lively and animated on
being exposed to heat. "The fish froze," says Cap-drogen without suffering death.

The extremely languid, or almost suspended state of these two functions, is demonstrated by the fact, that an animal to a state of hybernation may be placed for an hour in a jar í by“

in the marmot and hedgehog hybernation is prevented if the animals be kept in a higher temperature. It is also a curious fact, that an animal, if exposed to a more intense cold, while hybernating, is awaked from its lethargy. Exposing a hybernating animal to light has also, in many cases the same effect.

Some writers, and Buffon among the rest, deny that such a state of torpor as we have here described, can be looked upon as sleep. This is a question into which it is not necessary at present to enter. All I contend for is, that the state of the mind is precisely the same here as in the ordinary sleep-that, in both cases, the organs of the senses and of volition are equally inert; and that though the condition of the secretive and circulating systems are difierent, so many circumstances are nevertheless identical, that we become justified in considering the one in a work which professes to treat of the other.

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In Captain Cook's first voyage, a memorable instance is given of the power of intense cold in producing sleep. It occurred in the island of Terra del Fuego. Dr Solander, Mr Banks, and several other gentlemen had ascended the mountains of that cold region, for the purpose of botanizing and exploring the country. Dr Solander, who had more than once crossed the mountains which divide Sweden from Norway, well knew that extreme cold, especially when joined with fatigue, produces a torpor and sleepinesss that are almost irresistible. He, therefore, conjured the company to keep moving whatever pain it might cost them, and whatever relief they might be promised by an inclination to rest. Whoever sits down,' said he, will sleep; and whoever sleeps, will wake no more,' Thus at once admonished and alarmed, they set forward; but while they were still upon the naked rock, and before they had got among the bushes, the cold became suddenly so intense as to produce the effects that had been most dreaded. Dr Solander himself was the first who felt the inclination, against which he had warned others, irresistible; and insisted upon being suffered to lie down. Mr Banks entreated and remonstrated in vain; down he lay upon the ground, although it was covered with snow, and it was with great difficulty that his friend kept him from sleeping. Richmond, also, one of the black servants, began to linger, having suffered from the cold in the same manner as the Doctor. Mr Banks, therefore, sent five of the company, among whom was Buchan, forward, to get a fire ready at the first convenient place they could find; and himself, with four others remained with the Doctor and Richmond, whom, partly by persuasion and entreaty, and partly by force, they brought on; but when they had got through the greatest part of the birch and swamp, they both declared they could go no farther. Mr Banks agam had recourse to entreaty and expostulation, but they produced no effect. When Richmond was told that, if he did not go on, he would in a short time be frozen to death, he answered, that he desired nothing but to lie down and die. The Doctor did not so explicitly renounce his life; he said he was willing to go on, but that he must first take some sleep, though he had before told the company, to sleep was to perish. Mr Banks and the rest found it impossible to carry them; and there being no remedy, they were both suffered to sit down, being partly supported by the bushes; and in a few minutes they fell into a profound sleep. Soon after, some of the people who had been sent forward, returned, with the welcome news that a fire was kindled about a quarter of a mile farther on the way. Mr Banks then endeavored to awake Dr Solander, and happily succeeded. But though he had not slept five minutes, he had almost lost the use of his limbs, and the muscles were so shrunk, that the shoes fell from his feet: he consented to go forward with such assistance as could be given him, but no attempts to relieve poor Richmond were successful.

It is hardly necessary to say any thing about the treatment of such cases. If a person is found in a state of torpor from cold, common sense points out the necessity of bringing him within the influence of warmth. When, however, the limbs, &c., are frost-bitten, heat must be very cautiously applied, lest reaction, ensuing in such debilitated parts, might induce gangrene. Brisk friction with a cold towel, or even with snow, as is the custom in Russia, should, in the first instance, be had recourse to. When by this means the circulation is restored, and motion and feeling communicated to the parts, the heat may be gradually increased, and the person wrapped in blankets, and allowed some stimulus internally, such as a little negus, or spirits and water. This practice should be adopted from the very first, when the parts are not frost-bitten; but when such is the case, the stimulating system requires to be used with great caution, and we must proceed carefully, proportioning the stimulus to the particular circumstance of the case.

If a person is unfortunate enough to be overtaken in a snow storm, and has no immediate prospect of extrication, he should, if the cold is very great, and the snow deep, sink his body as much as possible in the latter, leaving only room for respiration. By this plan, the heat of the body is much better preserved than when exposed to the influence of the atmosphere, and life has a greater chance of being saved; for the temperature of the snow is not lower than that of the surrounding air, while its power of absorbing caloric is much less. It is on this principle that sheep live for such a length of time enveloped in snow wreaths, while, had they been openly exposed, for a much less period, to a similar degree of cold, death would inevitably have ensued.

One of the best methods to prevent the limbs from being frost-bitten in intensely cold weather, is to keep them continually in motion. Such was the method recommended by Xenophon to the Greek troops, in the memorable retreat of the ten thousand,' conducted by that distinguished soldier and historian.

CHAPTER XIII

TRANCE.

There is some analogy between suspended animation and sleep. It is not so striking, however, as to require any thing like a lengthened discussion of the former, which I shall only consider in so far as the resemblance holds good between it and sleep. I have already spoken of that suspension of the mind, and of some of the vital functions, which occurs in consequence of intense cold; but there are other varieties, not less singular in their nature. The principal of these are, fainting, apoplexy, hanging, suffocation, drowning and especially, trance. When complete fainting takes place, it has many of the characters of death-the countenance being pail, moist, and clammy; the body cold; the respiration extremely feeble; the pulsation of the heart apparently at an end; while the mind is in a state of utter abeyance. It is in the latter respect only that the resemblance exists between syncope and sleep; in every other they are widely different. The same rule holds with regard to apoplexy, in which a total insensibility, even to the strongest stimuli, takes place, accompanied also with mental torpor. In recoverable cases of drowning, hanging, and suffocation, a similar analogy prevails, only in a much feebler degree; the faculties of the mind being for the time suspended, and the actual existence of the vital spark only proved by the subsequent restoration of the individual to consciousness and feeling.

The most singular species, however, of suspended

animation is that denominated catalepsy, or trance. No affection, to which the animal frame is subject, is more remarkable than this. During its continuance, the whole body is cold, rigid, and inflexible; the countenance without color; the eyes fixed and motionless; while breathing and the pulsation of the heart are, to all appearance, at an end. The mental powers, also, are generally suspended, and participate in the universal torpor which pervades the frame. In this extraordinary condition, the person may remain for several days, having all, or nearly all, the characteristics of death impressed upon him. Such was the case with the celebrated Lady Russel, who only escaped premature interment by the affectionate prudence of her husband; and other well authenticated instances of similar preservation from burying alive, have been recorded.

The nature of this peculiar species of suspended animation, seems to be totally unknown; for there is such an apparent extinction of every faculty essential to life, that it is inconceivable how existence should go on during the continuance of the fit. There can be no doubt, however, that the suspension of the heart and lungs is more apparent than real. It is quite certain that the functions of these organs must continue, so as to sustain life although in so feeble a manner as not to come under the cognizance of our senses. The respiration, in particular, is exceedingly slight; for a mirror, held to the mouth of the individual, receives no tarnish whatever from his breath. One fact seems certain, that the functions of the nervous system are wholly suspended, with the exception of such a faint portion of energy, as to keep up the circulatory and respiratory phenomena: consciousness, in a great majority of cases, is abolished; and there is nothing wanting to indicate the unquestionable presence of death, but that decomposition of the body which invariably follows this state, and which never attends the presence of vitality.

The remote causes of trance are hidden in much obscurity; and, generally, we are unable to trace the affection to any external circumstance. It has been known to follow a fit of terror. Sometimes it ensues after hysteria, epilepsy, or other spasmodic diseases, and is occasionally an accompaniment of menorrhagia and intestinal worms. Nervous and hypochondriac patients are the most subject to its attacks; but sometimes it occurs when there is no disposition of the kind, and when the person is in a state of the most seeming good health.

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alive, and a great many persons who saw her while she was in the state of apathy described, are ready to satuny the doubts of any one who will take the trouble to inquire.'*

The case which follows is from the Canton Gazette, and is not less curious:

'On the western suburbs of Canton, a person named Le, bought as a slave-woman a girl named Leaning. At the age of twenty-one, he sold her to be a concubine to a man named Wong. She had lived with him three years. About six months ago she became ill, in consequence of a large imposthume on her side, and on the 25th of the present moon died. She was placed in a coffin, the lid of which remained unfastened, to wait for her parents to come and see the corpse, that they might be satisfied she died a natural death. On the 28th, while carrying the remains to be interred in the north side of Canton, a noise or voice was heard proceeding from the coffin; and, on removing the covering, it was found the woman had come to life again. She had been supposed dead for three days.'

The case of Colonel Townsend, however, is much more extraordinary than either of the above mentioned. This gentleman possessed the remarkable faculty of throwing himself into a trance at pleasure. The heart ceased, apparently, to throb at his bidding, respiration seemed at an end, his whole frame assumed the icy chill and rigidity of death; while his face became colourless and shrunk, and his eye fixed, glazed, and ghastly even his mind ceased to manifest itself; for during the trance it was utterly devoid of consciousness as his body of animation. In this state he would remain for hours, when these singular phenomena wore away, and he returned to his usual condition. Medical annals furnish no parallel to this extraordinary case, Considered whether in a physiological or metaphysical point of view, it is equally astonishing and inexplicable. A variety of stories are related of people having had circumstances revealed to them in a trance, of which they were ignorant when awake: most of these tales have their origin in fiction, although there is no reason why they may not be occasionally true; as the mind, instead of being in torpor, as is very generally the case, may exist in a state analogous to that of dreaming, and may thus, as in a common dream, have long forgotten events impressed upon it.

The following case exhibits a very singular instance, in which the usual characteristic-a suspension of the mental faculties-was wanting. It seems to have been a most complete instance of suspended volition, wherein the mind was active, while the body refused to obey its impulses, and continued in a state of apparent death.

A young lady, an attendant on the Princessafter having been confined to her bed, for a great length of time, with a violent nervous disorder, was at last, to all appearance, deprived of life. Her lips were quite pale, her face resembled the countenance of a dead person, and the body grew cold.

A girl named Shorigny, about twenty-five years old, residing at Paris, had been for two years past subject to hysteria. On the twenty-eighth day after she was first attacked, the physician who came to visit her was informed that she had died during the night, which much surprised him, as when he had left her the night before, she was better than usual. He went to see her, in order to convince himself of the fact; and, on raising the cloth with which she was covered, he perceived that though her face was very pale, and her lips discoloured, her features were not otherwise in the 'She was removed from the room in which she died, least altered. Her mouth was open, her eyes shut, and was laid in a coffin, and the day of her funeral fixed on. the pupils very much dilated; the light of the candle The day arrived, and, according to the custom of the made no impression on them. There was no sensible country, funeral songs and hymns were sung before the heat in her body; but it was not cold and flabby like door. Just as the people were about to nail on the li corpses in general. The physician returned the next of the coffin, a kind of perspiration was observed to ap day, determined on seeing her again before she was bu- pear on the surface of her body. It grew greater every ried; and, finding that she had not become cold, he gave moment; and at last a kind of convulsive motion was orders that the coffin should not be soldered down until observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few putrefaction had commenced. He continued to ob- minutes after, during which time fresh signs of returnserve her during five days, and at the end of that peri-ing life appeared, she at once opened her eyes and otod, a slight movement was observed in the cloth which covered her. In two hours, it was found that the arm had contracted itself; she began to move; and it was clear that it had only been an apparent death. The eyes soon after were seen opened, the senses returned, and the girl began gradually to recover. This is an extraordinary, but incontestible fact the girl is still

tered a most pitiable shriek. Physicians were quickly procured, and in the course of a few days she was considerably restored, and is probably alive at this day.

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The description which she gave of her situation is extremely remarkable, and forms a curious and authen tic addition to psychology.

• Mentor.

The scenes

She said it seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she dulge most frequently in waking dreams. was really dead; yet she was perfectly conscious of all which life presents do not come up to the desires of that happened around her in this dreadful state. She the heart; and the pencil of fancy is accordingly emdistinctly heard her friends speaking and lamenting her ployed in depicting others more in harmony with its death, at the side of her coffin. She felt them pull on own designs. Away into the gloomy back-ground goes the dead-clothes, and lay her in it. This feeling pro- reality with its stern and forbidding hues, and forward, duced a mental anxiety, which is indescribable. She in colours more dazzling than those of the rainbow, tried to cry, but her soul was without power, and could start the bright and airy phantoms of imagination. not act on her body. She had the contradictory feel-How often,' observes Dr Good,* waking to the roar ing as if she were in her body, and yet not in it, at one and the same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm, or to open her eyes, or to cry, although she continually endeavored to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height when the funeral hymns began to be sung, and when the lid of the coffin was about to be nailed

on.

The thought that she was to be buried alive, was the one that gave activity to her soul, and caused it to operate on her corporeal frame.'*

The following is different from either of the foregoing; I have given it on account of its singularity, although it does not altogether come under the denomination of trance.

George Grokatzhi, a Polish soldier, deserted from his regiment in the harvest of the year 1677. He was discovered, a few days after, drinking and making merry in a common ale-house. The moment he was apprehended, he was so much terrified, that he gave a loud shriek, and was immediately deprived of the power of speech. When brought to a court martial, it was impossible to make him articulate a word; nay, he then became as immovable as a statue, and appeared not to be conscious of any thing that was going forward. In the prison, to which he was conducted, he neither ate nor drank. The officers and priests at first threatened him, and afterwards endeavored to soothe and calm bim, but all their efforts were in vain. He remained senseless and immovable. His irons were struck off, and he was taken out of the prison, but he did not move. Twenty days and nights were passed in this way, during which he took no kind of nourishment: he then gradually sunk and died.'t

It would be out of place to enter here into a detail of the medical management of the first mentioned varieties of suspended animation, such as drowning, strangulation, &c., &c. ; and with regard to the treatment of trance, properly so called, a very few words will suffice. If we have reason to suppose that we know the cause of the affection, that, of course, must be removed whenever practicable. We must then employ stimuli to arouse the person from his torpor, such as friction, the application of sternutatories and volatile agents to the nostrils, and electricity. The latter remedy is likely to prove a very powerful one, and should always be had recourse to when other means fail. I should think the warin bath might be advantageously employed. When even these remedies do not succeed, we must trust to time. So long as the body does not run into decay, after a case of suspended animation arising without any very obvious cause, interment should not take place; for it is possible that life may exist, although, for the time being, there is every appearance of its utter extinction By neglecting this rule, a person may be interred alive; nor can there be a doubt that such dreadful mistakes have occasionally been committed, especially in France, where it is customary to inter the body twenty-four hours after death. Decomposition is the only infallible mark that existence is at an end, and that the grave has triumphed.

CHAPTER XIV.

VOLUNTARY WAKING DREAMS.

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of the midnight tempest, while dull and gluttonous indolence snores in happy forgetfulness, does the imagination of those who are thus divinely gifted mount the dizzy chariot of the whirlwind, and picture evils that have no real existence; now figuring to herself some neat and thrifty cottage where virtue delights to reside, she sees it swept away in a moment by the torrent, and despoiled of the little harvest just gathered in; now following the lone traveller in some narrow and venturous pathway, over the edge of the Alpine precipices, where a single slip is instant destruction, she tracks him alone by fitful flashes of lightning; and at length, struck by the flash, she beholds him tumbling headlong from rock to rock, to the bottom of the dread abyss, the victim of a double death. Or possibly she takes her stand on the jutting foreland of some bold terrific coast, and eyes the foundering vessel straight below; she mixes with the spent and despairing crew; she dives into the cabin, and singles out, perhaps from the rest, some lovely maid, who, in all the bloom of recovered beauty, is voyaging back to her native land from the healing airs of a foreign climate, in thought just bounding over the scenes of her youth, or panting in the warm embraces of a father's arms.' Such are waking dreams; and there are few who, at some happy moment or other, have not yielded to their influence. Often under the burning clime of India, or upon the lonely banks of the Mississippi, has the stranger let loose the reins of his imagination, calling up before him the mountains of his own beloved country, his native streams, and rocks, and valleys, so vividly, that he was transported back into the midst of them, and lived over again the days of his youth. Or the waking dream may assume a more selfish character. If the individual pines after wealth, his mind may be filled with visions of future opulence. If he is young and unmarried, he may conjure up the form of a lovely female, may place her in a beautiful cottage by the banks of some romantic stream, may love her with unfathomable affection, and become the fondest and most happy of husbands. The more completely a person is left to solitude, the more likely is his imagination to indulge in such fancies. We seldom build castles in the air in the midst of bustle, or when we have any thing else to think of. Waking dreams are the luxuries of an otherwise unemployed mind-the aristocratic indulgences of the intellect. As people get older and more coversant with life in all its diversified features, they are little inclined to indulge in such visions. They survey events with the eye of severe truth, amuse themselves with no impracticable notions of fancied happiness, and are inclined to take a gloomy, rather than a flattering, view of the future. With youthful and poetical minds, however, the case is widely different. Much of that portion of their existence, not devoted to occupation, is a constant dream. They lull themselves into temporary happiness with scenes which they know only to exist in their own imagination; but which are nevertheless so beautiful, and so much in harmony with every thing their souls desire, that they fondly clasp at the illusion, and submit themselves unhesitatingly to its spell.

These curious states of mind may occur at any time; but the most common periods of their accession are shortly after lying down, and shortly before getting up.

The young and the imaginative are those who in- Men, especially young men, of vivid, sanguine, imagina

Paychological Magazine, vol. v. part in page 15 Bonetus, Medic Septentrion.', lib. i. sec. xvi. cap. 6.

tive temperaments, have dreams of this kind almost • Book of Nature, vol. iii p. 422.

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