The anatomy of sleep: or, the art of procuring sound and refreshing slumber at will ... with annotations and additions by Earl Stanhope / by Edward Binns.

  • Binns Edward, -1852.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of sleep: or, the art of procuring sound and refreshing slumber at will ... with annotations and additions by Earl Stanhope / by Edward Binns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    sons, sleep much; and hydrocephalic patients, frequently. Yet, they are far removed from the condition of true health. Narcotic sleep is produced by destroying sensibility ; whereas, true sleep is the natural repose of the nervous system. From the one, we awake clouded and confused ; from the other, we arise gladdened and refreshed. By the latter, the spirits are rendered buoyant and the mind cheerful; from the former, we experience depression, melancholy, and a dread of some unknown evil. The one is the consequence of health, contentment, peace, and a well regulated economy, tertiarily as regards pecuniary affairs, mental emotions, and physical gratifications ; the other is the necessary sequent of irregularity, po- verty, misfortune, or ill-health. Most brutes sleep more than man; some, indeed, for months; as the hibernating tribes of bats, dormice, marmots, and bears. Cats and dogs would seem to have the faculty at will, as have some idiots, and persons of a low order of intellect. The ideas, or impressions upon their minds, are so feeble, or so few, or are made at such long intervals, that succession is lost for want of conti- nuity ; hence, the organ retains but imperfectly, or but for an instant, the image which the external senses have presented to it; weariness supervenes, unconsciousness follows, and lastly, sleep, as a necessary consequence of inanition, is induced. On the other hand, fish would appear to sleep but httle. They repose, but do not sleep. Geese are extremely wakeful. The geese of the Ca])itol are historic. When the sentinel slept they watched, and their cackling alarming the guard, enabled them to defeat the surprise of the enemy.
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