On the relation of sleep to convulsive affections / by William Frederick Barlow.

  • Barlow, W. F. (William Frederick), 1817-1853.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation of sleep to convulsive affections / by William Frederick Barlow. 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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    blood^s condition, as all secretions are; and it is not more the oflfice of the glands, each after its kind, to separate their fluids, than it is the vital function of the spinal cord, through the replenished vessels it abounds with, to supply unfailingly the motor power, whereof there is not only a different measure in sleep and wakefulness, but a superfluity in childhood, and a deficiency in age, whilst in some dis- eases it is as much below, as in others it is above, the de- mands of the system. I say nothing of idiosyncrasies, which would reward inquiry. Sleep may most manifestly be so indulged as to confirm or cause spasmodic affections. The vast amount of time consumed in it by infancy and child- hood, wherein prevails frequently a most perilous excitability, calls for attention. Coma is fairly, in some of its conse- quences, comparable to an extraordinarily protracted repose, and may bring on, as I have frequently noticed in young chil- dren, so morbid a susceptibility of spasmodic action, that the slightest touch or a drop of water will reflexly excite general convulsions. III. The Emotions of Dreaming.—These are, very pro- bably, amongst the most common immediate causes of the convulsions of sleep; and this we should be justified in suspecting from the marked effect of emotion in epilepsy, laryngismus stridulus, and other forms of spasmodic malady during the waking state. It is needless to enter at any length into the intense horror which dreams may occasion; all must have felt it; but in childhood they are singularly pertinacious and terrible, and may partly explain the frequency of convulsions at that time of life. Nor does the danger cease at the moment of awaking, for spectra are prone to linger and agitate. I have frequently watched the quiverings of the muscles and the starting of the limbs in dreams, which T regard amongst the most frequent of all the causes of convulsive action. The dreams of epileptics have been pointedly re- ferred to by Aretseus; and they have often a most unhappy influence on their dreadful disorder, breaking the sleep with