The cause of sleep / by Walter M. Coleman.

  • Walter Moore Coleman
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The cause of sleep / by Walter M. Coleman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The purpose is to treat of mental biology. The biology of the mental processes or functional psychology will be treated through the medium of human and comparative physiology and natural history. Short experimental papers will be published on Sleep, Consciousness, Desire, Moods, Feeling, Emotions, Motives, Mental Attitudes, Mental Hygiene, etc. To introduce the biology of mind, no subject seems more promising than the process of going into the state called sleep and awakening therefrom. The change is so marked and distinct that we have obviously to hope for more salient features to study than we would find by beginning the attack through study of the more slightly varying moods and changes of the waking state. Respiration will be studied for this is the only function which alternates quickly and constantly between voluntary and involuntary action. It closely yokes the slow chemical changes and the quick acting nervous system. This system was evolved for quick adaptations to environment without superseding the chemical relations \/VVvvv^i;;r‘'V\AA which existed before a nervous system came ^3 into being. Fig. 13 shows portion of a respiratory curve taken while a subject went to sleep with antenna of lever resting on sternum between the ends of the sixth ribs. The fifth breath shown (400th. breath in curve) is shallow, then follows a pause in passive position or what may be called the rest line (after expiration) of about 8 seconds. [The breathing is at the rate of about 15 breaths per Fig. I4. To sleep without previous dozing. Respirations become deeper. Rate unchanged. Long pause preceded by shallow breath as in Fig. 13. (W. M. C.) minute, or one in 4 seconds, and sincef this pause equals two breaths, it must be 8 seconds in length.] The first breath after the pause is very shallow, and then the breaths become deep, regular, and slower, the outward motion of chest wall (at the point recorded) being now just twice as great as when awake. Fig. 14 a curve taken from the same subject on another night, shows almost the same changes in the movements of the chest wall. Here, however.