Anomalies And Curiosities Of Medicine Part 65

The epidemic form appeared about 1374, although Hecker claims that, at that time, it was no new thing. a.s.semblages of men and women were seen at Aix-la-Chapelle who, impelled by a common delusion, would form circles, hand in hand, and dance in wild delirium until they fell to the ground exhausted, somewhat after the manner of the Ghost-Dance or Messiah-Dance of our North American Indians. In their Bacchantic leaps they were apparently haunted by visions and hallucinations, the fancy conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out. Some of them afterward stated that they appeared to be immersed in a stream of blood which obliged them to leap so high. Others saw the heavens open and disclose the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary. The partic.i.p.ants seemed to suffer greatly from tympanites which was generally relieved by compression or thumping on the abdomen. A few months after this dancing malady had made its appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle it broke out at Cologne, and about the same time at Metz, the streets of which were said to have been filled with 1100 dancers. This rich city became the scene of the most ruinous disorder. Peasants left their plows, mechanics their shops, servants their masters, children their homes; and beggars and idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate the convulsions, roved from place to place, inducing all sorts of crime and vice among the afflicted. Strasburg was visited by the dancing plague in 1418, and it was here that the plague a.s.sumed the name of St.

Vitus's dance. St. Vitus was a Sicilian youth who, just at the time he was about to undergo martyrdom by order of Diocletian, in the year 303, is said to have prayed to G.o.d that He might protect all those who would solemnize the day of his commemoration and fast upon its eve. The people were taught that a voice from heaven was then heard saying, "Vitus, thy prayer is accepted."

Paracelsus called this malady (Chorus sancti viti) the lascivious dance, and says that persons stricken with it were helpless until relieved by either recovery or death. The malady spread rapidly through France and Holland, and before the close of the century was introduced into England. In his "Anatomy of Melancholy" Burton refers to it, and speaks of the idiosyncrasies of the individuals afflicted. It is said they could not abide one in red clothes, and that they loved music above all things, and also that the magistrates in Germany hired musicians to give them music, and provided them with st.u.r.dy companions to dance with. Their endurance was marvelous. Plater speaks of a woman in Basle whom he saw, that danced for a month. In Strasburg many of them ate nothing for days and nights until their mania subsided.

Paracelsus, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, was the first to make a study of this disease. He outlined the severest treatment for it, and boasted that he cured many of the victims. Hecker conjectures that probably the wild revels of St. John's day, 1374, gave rise to this mental plague, which thenceforth visited so many thousands with incurable aberrations of mind and disgusting distortions of the body.

Almost simultaneous with the dance of "St. With," there appeared in Italy and Arabia a mania very similar in character which was called "tarantism," which was supposed to originate in the bite of the tarantula. The only effective remedy was music in some form. In the Tigre country, Abyssinia, this disease appeared under the name of "Tigretier." The disease, fortunately, rapidly declined, and very little of it seems to have been known in the sixteenth century, but in the early part of the eighteenth century a peculiar sect called the "Convulsionnaires" arose in France; and throughout England among the Methodist sect, insane convulsions of this nature were witnessed; and even to the present day in some of the primitive religious meetings of our people, something not unlike this mania of the Middle Ages is perpetuated.

Paracelsus divided the sufferers of St. Vitus's dance into three cla.s.ses .--

(1) Those in which the affliction arose from imagination (ch.o.r.ea imaginativa).

(2) Those which had their origin in s.e.xual desires depending on the will.

(3) Those arising from corporeal causes (ch.o.r.ea naturalis). This last case, according to a strange notion of his own he explained by maintaining that in certain vessels which are susceptible of an internal pruriency, and thence produced laughter, the blood is set into commotion in consequence of an alteration in the vital spirits, whereby are occasioned involuntary fits of intoxicating joy, and a propensity to dance. The great physician Sydenham gave the first accurate description of what is to-day called ch.o.r.ea, and hence the disease has been named "Sydenham's ch.o.r.ea." So true to life was his portrayal of the disease that it has never been surpa.s.sed by modern observers.

The disease variously named palmus, the jumpers, the twitchers, lata, miryachit, or, as it is sometimes called, the emeryaki of Siberia, and the tic-convulsif of La Tourette, has been very well described by Gray who says that the French authors had their attention directed to the subject by the descriptions of two American authors--those of Beard upon "The Jumpers of Maine," published in 1880, and that of Hammond upon "Miryachit," a similar disease of the far Orient. Beard found that the jumpers of Maine did unhesitatingly whatever they were told to do.

Thus, one who was sitting in a chair was told to throw a knife that he had in his hand, and he obeyed so quickly that the weapon stuck in a house opposite; at the same time he repeated the command given him, with a cry of alarm not unlike that of hysteria or epilepsy. When he was suddenly clapped upon the shoulder he threw away his pipe, which he had been filling with tobacco. The first parts of Virgil's aeneid and Homer's Iliad were recited to one of these illiterate jumpers, and he repeated the words as they came to him in a sharp voice, at the same time jumping or throwing whatever he had in his hand, or raising his shoulder, or making some other violent motion. It is related by O'Brien, an Irishman serving on an English naval vessel, that an elderly and respectable Malay woman, with whom he was conversing in an entirely unsuspecting manner, suddenly began to undress herself, and showed a most ominous and determined intention of stripping herself completely, and all because a by-standing friend had suddenly taken off his coat; at the same time she manifested the most violent anger at what she deemed this outrage to her s.e.x, calling the astonished friend an abandoned hog, and begging O'Brien to kill him. O'Brien, furthermore, tells of a cook who was carrying his child in his arms over the bridge of a river, while at the same time a sailor carried a log of wood in like manner; the sailor threw his log of wood on an awning, amusing himself by causing it to roll over the cloth, and finally letting it fall to the bridge; the cook repeated every motion with his little boy, and killed him on the spot. This miryachit was observed in Malaysia, Bengal, among the Sikhs and the Nubians, and in Siberia, whilst Beard has observed it in Michigan as well as in Maine.

Crichton speaks of a leaping ague in Anguss.h.i.+re, Scotland.

Gray has seen only one case of acute palmus, and records it as follows: "It was in a boy of six, whose heredity, so far as I could ascertain from the statements of his mother, was not neurotic. He had had trouble some six months before coming to me. He had been labeled with a number of interesting diagnoses, such as ch.o.r.ea, epilepsy, myotonia, hysteria, and neurasthenia. His palmodic movements were very curious. When standing near a table looking at something, the chin would suddenly come down with a thump that would leave a black-and-blue mark, or his head would be thrown violently to one side, perhaps coming in contact with some adjacent hard object with equal force, or, while standing quietly, his legs would give a sudden twitch, and he would be thrown violently to the ground, and this even happened several times when he was seated on the edge of a stool. The child was under my care for two weeks, and, probably because of an intercurrent attack of diarrhea, grew steadily worse during that time, in spite of the full doses of a.r.s.enic which were administered to him. He was literally covered with bruises from the sudden and violent contacts with articles of furniture, the floor, and the walls. At last, in despair at his condition, I ordered him to be undressed and put to bed, and steadily pushed the Fowler's solution of a.r.s.enic until he was taking ten drops three times a day, when, to my great surprise, he began to improve rapidly, and at the end of six weeks was perfectly well. Keeping him under observation for two weeks longer I finally sent him to his home in the West, and am informed that he has since remained perfectly well.

It has seemed to me that many of the cases recorded as paramyoclonus multiples have been really acute palmus."

Gray mentions two cases of general palmus with pseudomelancholia, and describes them in the following words:--

"The muscular movements are of the usual sudden, shock-like type, and of the same extent as in what I have ventured to call the general form.

With them, however, there is a.s.sociated a curious pseudomelancholia, consisting of certain fixed melancholy suspicious delusions, without, however, any of the suicidal tendencies and abnormal sensations up and down the back of the head, neck, or spine, or the sleeplessness, which are characteristic of most cases of true melancholia. In both of my cases the palmus had existed for a long period, the exact limits of which, however, I could not determine, because the patient scouted the idea that he had had any trouble of the kind, but which the testimony of friends and relatives seemed to vouch for. They were both men, one thirty-six and one thirty-eight years of age. The pseudomelancholia, however, had only existed in one case for about a year, and in the other for six months. One case pa.s.sed away from my observation, and I know nothing of its further course. The other case recovered in nine months' treatment, and during the three years that have since elapsed he has been an active business man, although I have not seen him myself during that period, as he took a great dislike to me because I was forced to take strong measures to keep him under treatment, so persistent were his suspicions."

Athetosis was first described by Hammond in 1871, who gave it the name because it was mainly characterized by an inability to retain the fingers and toes in any position in which they might be planed, as well as by their continuous motion. According to Drewry "athetosis is a cerebral affection, presenting a combination of symptoms characterized chiefly by a more or less constant mobility of the extremities and an inability to retain them in any fixed position. These morbid, grotesque, involuntary movements are slow and wavy, somewhat regular and rigid, are not jerky, spasmodic, nor tremulous. The movements of the digits are quite different from those attending any other disease, impossible to imitate even by the most skilful malingerer, and, if once seen, are not likely to be forgotten. In an athetoid hand, says Starr, the interossei and lumbricales, which flex the metacarpo-phalangeal and extend the phalangeal joints, are affected; rarely are the long extensors and the long flexors affected. Therefore the hand is usually in the so-called interosseal position, with flexion of the proximal and extension of the middle and distal phalanges. The athetoid movements of the toes correspond to those of the fingers in point of action. In a great majority of cases the disease is confined to one side (hemiathetosis), and is a sequel of hemiplegia. The differential diagnosis of athetosis is generally easily made. The only nervous affections with which it could possibly be confounded are ch.o.r.ea and paralysis agitans. Attention to the twitching, spasmodic, fibrillary movements, having a quick beginning and a quick ending, which is characteristic in Sydenham's ch.o.r.ea, would at once exclude that disease. These jerky movements peculiar to St. Vitus's dance may be easily detected in a few or many muscles, if moderate care and patience be exercised on the part of the examiner. This form of ch.o.r.ea is almost always a disease of childhood. So-called post-hemiplegic ch.o.r.ea is, in the opinion of both Hammond and Gray, simply athetosis. The silly, dancing, posturing, wiry movements, and the facial distortion observed in Huntington's ch.o.r.ea would hardly be mistaken by a careful observer for athetosis. The two diseases, however, are somewhat alike. Paralysis agitans (shaking palsy), with its coa.r.s.e tremor, peculiar facies, immobility, shuffling gait, the 'bread-crumbling' att.i.tude of the fingers, and deliberate speech, would be readily eliminated even by a novice. It is, too, a disease of advanced life, usually. Charcot, Gray, Ringer, Bernhardt, Shaw, Eulenberg, Gra.s.sel; Kinnicutt, Sinkler, and others have written on this affection."

The following is the report of a case by Drewry, of double (or, more strictly speaking, quadruple) athetosis, a.s.sociated with epilepsy and insanity: "The patient was a negro woman, twenty-six years old when she was admitted into this, the Central State (Va.) Hospital, in April, 1886. She had had epilepsy of the grand mal type for a number of years, was the mother of one child, and earned her living as a domestic. A careful physical examination revealed nothing of importance as an etiologic factor. Following in the footsteps of many of those unfortunates afflicted with epilepsy, she degenerated into a state of almost absolute imbecility.

"Some degree of mental deficiency seems usually to accompany athetosis, even when uncomplicated by any other degenerating neurosis. Athetoid symptoms of an aggravated character, involving both upper and both lower extremities, had developed previous to her admission into this hospital, but it was impossible to find out when and how they began.

She had never had, to the knowledge of her friends, an attack of 'apoplexy,' nor of paralysis. The head was symmetric, and without scars thereon. The pedal extremities involuntarily a.s.sumed various distorted positions and were constantly in motion. The toes were usually in a state of tonic spasm,--contracted, and drawn downward or extended, pointing upward, and slightly separated. Irregular alternate extension and flexion of the toes were marked. The feet were moved upon the ankles in a stiff and awkward manner. During these 'complex involuntary movements,' the muscles of the calf became hard and rigid. The act of walking was accomplished with considerable difficulty, on account of contractures, and because the feet were not exactly under the control of the will. The unnatural movements of the hands corresponded to those of the lower extremities, though they were more constant and active.

The fingers, including the thumbs, were usually widely separated and extended, though they were sometimes slightly flexed. The hands were continually in slow, methodic, quasi-rhythmic motion, never remaining long in the same att.i.tude. In grasping an object the palm of the hand was used, it being difficult to approximate the digits. The wrist-joints were also implicated, there being alternate flexion and extension. In fact these odd contortions affected the entire limb from the shoulder to the digital extremities. When standing or walking the arms were held out horizontally, as if to maintain the equilibrium of the body. The patient's general physical health was fairly good. She frequently complained of headache, and when she was exceedingly irritable and violent all the athetoid movements would be intensified.

Speech was jerky and disordered, which gave it a distinctive character.

The special senses seemed to be unimpaired, and the pupils were normal, except when an epileptic attack came on. Death occurred in January, 1895, after an obstinate attack of status epilepticus." Paramyoclonus multiplex is a condition of chronic muscular spasm affecting the trunk, occasionally the muscles of the face, abdomen, or diaphragm. The muscles affected are usually in the trunk and in the limbs, and not in the toes and hand; occasionally the movements are tonic as well as clonic; the degree of spasm varies greatly, and according to Gray may sometimes be so violent as to throw the patient down or out of the chair.

Saltatoric spasm is an extremely rare condition, first observed by Bamberger in 1859. The calf, hip, knee, and back-muscles are affected by clonic spasm, causing springing or jumping movements when the patient attempts to stand. The disease is transient, and there are no mental symptoms.

Progressive muscular atrophy has been observed as far back as Hippocrates, but it is only in recent times that we have had any definite knowledge of the subject. It is divided into four types, the hand type (causing the griffin-or claw-hand, or the ape-hand); the juvenile type (generally in the muscles of the shoulder and arm); the facial type; and the peroneal type. Generalized progressive atrophy leads to a condition that simulates the appearance of a "living skeleton."

Facial hemiatrophy is an incurable disease, as yet of unknown pathology. It consists of wasting of the bones, subcutaneous tissues, and muscles of one-half of the face or head, the muscles suffering but slightly. The accompanying ill.u.s.tration shows a case in which there was osseous depression of the cranium and a localized alopecia. The disease is very rare, only about 100 cases having been reported. Of five cases seen by Dana, three were in females and two in males; in all the cases that could be found the origin was between the tenth and twentieth years. It is a chronic affection, usually beginning in early life, increasing slowly for years, and then becoming stationary. It is distinguished from one-sided muscular atrophy by the electric reaction, which is not lost in the facial muscles in facial hemiatrophy, and there is no atrophy of other muscles of the body.

Burr contributes an exhaustive paper on hemiatrophy of the tongue with report of a case as follows: "L. B., female, mulatto, thirty-one years old, married, came to the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital, Philadelphia, September 23, 1895, complaining that her 'tongue was crooked.' Save that she had had syphilis, her personal history is negative. In February, 1895, she began to suffer from headache, usually behind the left ear, and often preventing sleep. At times there is quite severe vertigo. Several weeks after the onset, headache persisting, she awoke in the night and found the left side of the tongue swollen, black, and painless. For some hours she could neither speak nor chew, but breathing was not interfered with. After a few days all symptoms pa.s.sed away except headache, and she thought no more of the matter until recently, as stated above, she noticed by accident that her tongue was deformed. She is a spare, poorly-fed, muddy-skinned mulatto girl. The left half of the tongue is only about one-half as large as the right.

The upper surface is irregularly depressed and elevated. There are no scars. When protruded it turns sharply to the left. Fibrillary twitching is not present. The mucous membrane is normal. Common sensation and taste are preserved. The pharyngeal reflex is present.

The palate moves well. There is no palsy or wasting of the face. The pupils are of normal size and react well to light and with accommodation. Station and gait are normal. There is no incoordination of movement in the arms or legs. The knee-jerks are much increased.

There is an attempt at, but no true, clonus; that is, pa.s.sive flexion of the foot causes two or three jerky movements. There is no glandular swelling or tumor about the jaw or in the neck. Touch and pain-sense are normal in the face and hands, but she complains of numbness in the hands as if she had on tight gloves. There is no trouble in speaking, chewing, or swallowing. There is no pain or rigidity in the neck muscles. Examination of the pharynx reveals no disease of the bones.

Under specific treatment the patient improved."

Astasia-abasia was named by Blocq, who collected 11 cases. According to Knapp, four cases have been reported in America. The disease consists in an inability to stand erect or walk normally, although there is no impairment of sensation, of muscular strength, or of the coordination of other muscles in walking than the lower extremities. In attempting to walk the legs become spasmodic; there are rapid flexions and extensions of the legs on the thighs, and of the thighs on the pelvis. The steps are short, and the feet drag; the body may make great oscillations if the patient stands, walks, or sits, and the head and arms make rhythmical movements; walking may become impossible, the patient appearing to leap up on one foot and then up on the other, the body and head oscillating as he advances; he may be able to walk cross-legged, or by raising the legs high; or to walk on his hands and feet; he may be able to walk at certain times and not at others; or to hop with both feet together; he may succeed with great strides and with the arms extended; or finally he may be able to use his legs perfectly if suspended (Gray). There are various types which have been called the paralytic, the ch.o.r.eic, and the saltatory. A tendency to go backward or retropulsion has been observed, according to Gray, as has also a tendency to go forward or propulsion. A curious phenomenon in this disease is that the patient can use the legs perfectly well lying in bed. The prognosis seems to be favorable.

Meniere's disease is a disease probably of the semicircular ca.n.a.ls, characterized by nausea, vomiting, vertigo, deafness, tinnitus aurium, and various other phenomena. It is also called aural or auditory vertigo. The salient symptom is vertigo, and this varies somewhat in degree according to the portions of the ear affected. If the disease is in the labyrinth, the patient is supposed to stagger to one side, and the vertigo is paroxysmal, varying to such a degree as to cause simple reeling, or falling as if shot. Gray reports the history of a patient with this sensational record: He had been a peasant in Ireland, and one day crossing one of the wide moors in a dog-cart, he was suddenly, as he thought, struck a violent blow from behind, so that he believed that he lost consciousness for some time. At all events, when he was able to get up he found his horse and cart some distance off, and, of course, not a soul in sight. Under the belief that he had been struck by some enemy he went quietly home and said nothing about it. Some time afterward, however, in crossing another lonely place he had a similar experience, and as he came to the conclusion that n.o.body could have been near him, he made up his mind that it was some malevolent stroke of the devil and he consulted a priest who agreed with him in his belief, and gave him an amulet to wear. A series of similar attacks occurred and puzzled as to whether there was some diabolical agency at work, or whether he was the victim of some conspiracy, he emigrated to America; for several months he had no attacks. A new paroxysm occurring he consulted Gray, who found indubitable evidence of labyrinthine disease. The paroxysms of this disease are usually accompanied by nausea and vomiting, and on account of the paleness of the face, and the cold, clammy perspiration, attacks have frequently been mistaken for apoplexy. In disease of the middle ear the attacks are continuous rather than paroxysmal. If the disease is in the middle or internal ears, loud noises are generally heard, but if the disease is in the external ear, the noises are generally absent, and the vertigo of less degree but continuous. The prognosis varies with the location of the disease, but is always serious.

Human rumination has been known for many years. Bartholinus, Paullinus, Blanchard, Bonet, the Ephemerides, Fabricius Hilda.n.u.s, Horstius, Morgagni, Peyer, Rhodius, Vogel, Salmuth, Percy, Laurent, and others describe it. Fabricius d'Aquapendente personally knew a victim of rumination, or, as it is generally called, merycism. The dissection by Bartholinus of a merycol showed nothing extraordinary in the cadaver.

Winthier knew a Swede of thirty-five, in Germany, apparently healthy, but who was obliged when leaving the table to retire to some remote place where he might eject his food into his mouth again, saying that it gave him the sensation of sweetest honey. The patient related that from his infancy he had been the subject of acid eructations, and at the age of thirty he commenced rumination as a means of relief. To those who are interested in the older records of these cases Percy and Laurent offer the descriptions of a number of cases.

In a recent discussion before the American Neurological a.s.sociation Hammond defined merycism as the functions of remastication and rumination in the human subject. He referred to several cases, among them that of the distinguished physiologist, Brown-Sequard, who acquired the habit as a result of experiments performed upon himself.

Hammond reported a case of a young man who was the subject of merycism, and whose mental condition was also impaired. No special treatment was undertaken, but the patient was trephined, with the purpose of improving his mental condition. There were no unusual features connected with the operation, but it was noticed that there were no ruminations with the meals he took until the fifth day, when a slight rumination occurred. Eight days later a similar b.u.t.ton was removed from the corresponding side of the left skull, and from that time (about six months) to the time of report, there had been no regurgitation. Whether the cure of the merycism in this case was directly due to the operations on the cranium, or the result of the mental improvement, is a question for discussion. Hammond added that, when acquired, merycism was almost invariably the result of over-eating and loading the esophagus, or the result of fast eating.

In remarks upon Hammond's paper Knapp said that two cases had come to his knowledge, both in physicians, but one of them he knew of only by hearsay. The other man, now over thirty, had regurgitated his food from early childhood, and he did not know that he had anything very unusual the matter with him until he began some investigations upon the functions and diseases of the stomach. This man was not nervous, and was certainly not an idiot. He had done active work as a physician, and called himself in perfect health. He was something of an epicure, and never suffered from indigestion. After a hearty meal the regurgitation was more marked. Food had been regurgitated, tasting as good as when first eaten, several hours after the eating. If he attempted to check the regurgitation he sometimes had a slight feeling of fulness in the stomach. Lloyd said that these cases were forms of neuroses, and were types of hysteric vomiting. There was no gustatory satisfaction connected with any form of hysteric vomiting that he had seen. In some of these cases of hysteric vomiting the food does not appear to enter the stomach, but is rejected by a sort of spasm of the esophagus. This has been called "esophagismus," and is apparently closely allied to this neurosis, which some have called "merycism." The President of the a.s.sociation said that this would seem to be an affection common among physicians. A student friend of his who had been affected in this way, had written an elaborate monograph on the subject. He was disgusted with the habit, and finally overcame it by the exercise of his will-power.

Runge discusses three cases of hereditary rumination. These patients belonged to three generations in the male line. The author subjected the contents of the stomach of one patient to quite an extensive a.n.a.lysis, without finding any abnormality of secretion.

Wakefulness.--Generally speaking, the length of time a person can go without sleep is the same as that during which he can survive without food. Persons, particularly those of an hysteric nature, are p.r.o.ne to make statements that they have not slept for many days, or that they never sleep at all, but a careful examination and watch during the night over these patients show that they have at least been in a drowsy, somnolent condition, which is in a measure physiologically equivalent to sleep. Accounts of long periods of wakefulness arise from time to time, but a careful examination would doubtless disprove them.

As typical of these accounts, we quote one from Anderson, Indiana, December 11, 1895:--

"David Jones of this city, who attracted the attention of the entire medical profession two years ago by a sleepless spell of ninety-three days, and last year by another spell which extended over one hundred and thirty-one days, is beginning on another which he fears will be more serious than the preceding ones. He was put on the circuit jury three weeks ago, and counting to-day has not slept for twenty days and nights. He eats and talks as well as usual, and is full of business and activity. He does not experience any bad effects whatever from the spell, nor did he during his one hundred and thirty-one days. During that spell he attended to all of his farm business. He says now that he feels as though he never will sleep again. He does not seem to bother himself about the prospects of a long and tedious wake. He cannot attribute it to any one thing, but thinks that it was probably superinduced by his use of tobacco while young."

Somnambulism, or, as it has been called, noctambulation, is a curious phase of nocturnal cerebration a.n.a.logous to the hypnotic state, or double consciousness occasionally observed in epileptics. Both Hippocrates and Aristotle discuss somnambulism, and it is said that the physician Galen was a victim of this habit. Horstius, ab Heers, and many others of the older writers recorded interesting examples of this phenomenon. Schenck remarks on the particular way in which somnambulists seem to escape injury. Haller, Hoffmann, Ga.s.sendi, Caelius Rhodiginus, Pinel, Hechler, Bohn, Richter,--in fact nearly all the ancient physiologists and anatomists have written on this subject.

The marvelous manifestations of somnambulism are still among the more surprising phenomena with which science has to deal. That a person deeply immersed in thought should walk and talk while apparently unconscious, excites no surprise, but that anyone should when fast asleep perform a series of complicated actions which undoubtedly demand the a.s.sistance of the senses is marvelous indeed. Often he will rise in the night, walk from room to room, go out on porticoes, and in some cases on steep roofs, where he would not dare to venture while awake.

Frequently he will wander for hours through streets and fields, returning home and to bed without knowledge of anything having transpired.

The state of the eyes during somnambulism varies considerably. They are sometimes closed, sometimes half-closed, and frequently quite open; the pupil is sometimes widely dilated, sometimes contracted, sometimes natural, and for the most part insensible to light.

Somnambulism seems to be hereditary. Willis cites an example in which the father and the children were somnambulists, and in other cases several individuals in the same family have been afflicted. Horstius gives a history of three young brothers who became somnambulistic at the same epoch. A remarkable instance of somnambulism was the case of a lad of sixteen and a half years who, in an attack of somnambulism, went to the stable, saddled his horse, asked for his whip, and disputed with the toll-keeper about his fare, and when he awoke had no recollection whatever of his acts, having been altogether an hour in his trance.

Marville quotes the case of an Italian of thirty, melancholic, and a deep thinker, who was observed one evening in his bed. It was seen that he slept with his eyes open but fixed and immovable. His hands were cold, and his pulse extremely slow. At midnight he brusquely tore the curtains of his bed aside, dressed himself, went to his stable, and mounted a horse. Finding the gate of the court yard closed he opened it with the aid of a large stone. Soon he dismounted, went to a billiard room, and simulated all the movements of one playing. In another room he struck with his empty hands a harpsichord, and finally returned to his bed. He appeared to be irritated when anybody made a noise, but a light placed under his nose was apparently unnoticed. He awoke if his feet were tickled, or if a horn was blown in his ear. Tissot transmits to us the example of a medical student who arose in the night, pursued his studies, and returned to bed without awaking; and there is another record of an ecclesiastic who finished his sermon in his sleep.

The Archbishop of Bordeaux attests the case of a young ecclesiastic who was in the habit of getting up during the night in a state of somnambulism, taking pen, ink, and paper, and composing and writing sermons. When he had finished a page he would read aloud what he had written and correct it. In order to ascertain whether the somnambulist made any use of his eyes the Archbishop held a piece of cardboard under his chin to prevent his seeing the paper upon which he was writing. He continued to write without being in the slightest degree incommoded. In this state he also copied out pieces of music, and when it happened that the words were written in too large characters and did not stand over the corresponding notes he perceived his error, blotted them out, and wrote them over again with great exactness.

Negretti, a sleep-walker, sometimes carried a candle about with him as if to furnish him light in his employment, but when a bottle was subst.i.tuted he carried it, fancying that he had the candle. Another somnambulist, Castelli, was found by Dr. Sloane translating Italian and French and looking out words in his dictionary. His candle was purposely extinguished, whereupon he immediately began groping about, as if in the dark, and, although other lighted candles were in the room, he did not resume his occupation until he had relighted his candle at the fire. He was insensible to the light of every candle excepting the one upon which his attention was fixed.

Tuke tells of a school-boy who being unable to master a school-problem in geometry retired to bed still thinking of the subject; he was found late at night by his instructor on his knees pointing from spot to spot as though he were at the blackboard. He was so absorbed that he paid no attention to the light of the candle, nor to the speech addressed to him. The next morning the teacher asked him if he had finished his problem, and he replied that he had, having dreamt it and remembered the dream. There are many such stories on record. Quoted by Gray, Mesnet speaks of a suicidal attempt made in his presence by a somnambulistic woman. She made a noose of her ap.r.o.n, fastened one end to a chair and the other to the top of a window. She then kneeled down in prayer, made the sign of the cross, mounted a stool, and tried to hang herself. Mesnet, scientific to the utmost, allowed her to hang as long as he dared, and then stopped the performance. At another time she attempted to kill herself by violently throwing herself on the floor after having failed to fling herself out of the window. At still another time she tried poison, filling a gla.s.s with water, putting several coins into it, and hiding it after bidding farewell to her family in writing; the next night, when she was again somnambulistic, she changed her mind once more, writing to her family explaining her change of purpose. Mesnet relates some interesting experiments made upon a French sergeant in a condition of somnambulism, demonstrating the excitation of ideas in the mind through the sense of touch in the extremities. This soldier touched a table, pa.s.sed his hands over it, and finding nothing on it, opened the drawer, took out a pen, found paper and an inkstand, and taking a chair he sat down and wrote to his commanding officer speaking of his bravery, and asking for a medal. A thick metallic plate was then placed before his eyes so as to completely intercept vision. After a few minutes, during which he wrote a few words with a jumbled stroke, he stopped, but without any petulance. The plate was removed and he went on writing. Somnambulism may a.s.sume such a serious phase as to result in the commission of murder. There is a case of a man of twenty-seven, of steady habits, who killed his child when in a state of somnambulism. He was put on trial for murder, and some of the most remarkable facts of his somnambulistic feats were elicited in the evidence. It is said that once when a boy he arose at night while asleep, dressed himself; took a pitcher and went for milk to a neighboring farm, as was his custom. At another time he worked in a lumber-yard in a rain-storm while asleep. Again, when about twenty-one, he was seen in a mill-pond wading about attempting to save his sister who he imagined was drowning. The worst phase of his somnambulism was the impending fears and terrible visions to which he was subjected. Sometimes he would imagine that the house was on fire and the walls about to fall upon him, or that a wild beast was attacking his wife and child; and he would fight, screaming inarticulately all the while. He would chase the imaginary beast about the room, and in fact had grasped one of his companions, apparently believing he was in a struggle with a wild beast. He had often injured himself in these struggles, and had often attacked his father, his wife, sister, fellow-lodgers, and while confined in jail he attacked one of his fellow-prisoners. His eyes would always be wide open and staring; he was always able to avoid pieces of furniture which were in his way, and he occasionally threw them at his visionary enemies. At the time of the murder of his child, in a somnambulistic attack, he imagined that he saw a wild beast rise up from the floor and fly at his child, a babe of eighteen months. He sprang at the beast and dashed it to the ground, and when awakened, to his horror and overwhelming grief he found that he had killed his beloved baby. A similar record has been reported of a student who attempted during the night to stab his teacher; the man was disarmed and locked up in another portion of the building; but he had not the slightest remembrance of the events of the night.

Yellowlees speaks of homicide by a somnambulist. According to a prominent New York paper, one of the most singular and at the same time sad cases of somnambulism occurred a few years ago near Bakersville, N.C. A young man there named Garland had been in the habit of walking in his sleep since childhood. Like most other sleep-walkers when unmolested, his ramblings had been without harm to himself or others.

Consequently his wife paid little attention to them. But finally he began to stay away from the house longer than usual and always returned soaking wet. His wife followed him one night. Leaving his home he followed the highway until he came to a rough, narrow pig-trail leading to the Tow River. His wife followed with difficulty, as he picked his way through the tangled forest, over stones and fallen trees and along the sides of precipitous cliffs. For more than a mile the sleeper trudged on until he came to a large poplar tree, which had fallen with its topmost branches far out in the river. Walking on the log until he came to a large limb extending over the water, he got down on his hands and knees and began crawling out on it. The frightened wife screamed, calling to him to wake up and come back. He was awakened by the cries, fell into the river, and was drowned. Each night for weeks he had been taking that perilous trip, crawling out on the limb, leaping from it into the river, swimming to the sh.o.r.e, and returning home unconscious of anything having happened.

Dreams, nightmare, and night terrors form too extensive a subject and one too well known to be discussed at length here, but it might be well to mention that sometimes dreams are said to be pathognomonic or prodromal of approaching disease. Cerebral hemorrhage has often been preceded by dreams of frightful calamities, and intermittent fever is often announced by persistent and terrifying dreams. Hammond has collected a large number of these prodromic dreams, seeming to indicate that before the recognizable symptoms of disease present themselves a variety of morbid dreams may occur. According to Dana, Albers says: "Frightful dreams are signs of cerebral congestion. Dreams about fire are, in women, signs of impending hemorrhage. Dreams about blood and red objects are signs of inflammatory conditions. Dreams of distorted forms are frequently a sign of abdominal obstruction and diseases of the liver."

Catalepsy, trance, and lethargy, lasting for days or weeks, are really examples of spontaneously developed mesmeric sleep in hysteric patients or subjects of incipient insanity. If the phenomenon in these cases takes the form of catalepsy there is a waxy-like rigidity of the muscles which will allow the limbs to be placed in various positions, and maintain them so for minutes or even hours. In lethargy or trance-states the patient may be plunged into a deep and prolonged unconsciousness lasting from a few hours to several years. It is in this condition that the lay journals find argument for their stories of premature burial, and from the same source the fabulous "sleeping girls" of the newspapers arise. Dana says that some persons are in the habit of going into a mesmeric sleep spontaneously. In these states there may be a lowering of bodily temperature, a r.e.t.a.r.ding of the respiration and heart-action, and excessive sluggishness of the action of the bowels. The patients can hear and may respond to suggestions, though apparently insensible to painful impressions, and do not appear to smell, taste, or see; the eyes are closed, turned upward, and the pupils contracted as in normal sleep.

This subject has been investigated by such authorities as Weir Mitch.e.l.l and Hammond, and medical literature is full of interesting cases, many differing in the physiologic phenomena exhibited; some of the most striking of these will be quoted. Van Kasthoven of Leyden reports a strange case of a peasant of Wolkwig who, it is alleged, fell asleep on June 29, 1706, awakening on January 11, 1707, only to fall asleep again until March 15th of the same year. Tuke has resurrected the remarkable case reported by Arnold of Leicester, early in this century. The patient's name was John Engelbrecht. This man pa.s.sed into a condition of catalepsy in which he heard everything about him distinctly, but in his imagination he seemed to have pa.s.sed away to another world, this condition coming on with a suddenness which he describes as with "far more swiftness than any arrow can fly when discharged from a cross-bow." He also lost his sensation from the head downward, and recovered it in the opposite direction. At Bologna there was observed the case of a young female who after a profound grief had for forty-two successive days a state of catalepsy lasting from midday to midnight.

Muller of Lowenburg records a case of lethargy in a young female, following a sudden fright in her fourteenth year, and abrupt suppression of menstruation. This girl was really in a sleep for four years. In the first year she was awake from one minute to six hours during the day. In the second and third years she averaged four hours wakefulness in ninety-six hours. She took very little nourishment and sometimes had no bowel-movement for sixteen days. Scull reports the history of a man of twenty-seven suffering with incipient phthisis, who remained bedridden and in a state of unconsciousness for fifteen months. One day while being fed he spoke out and asked for a gla.s.s of water in his usual manner, and so frightened his sister that she ran from the room. The man had remembered nothing that had occurred during the fifteen months, and asked who was president and seemed eager for news. One curious fact was that he remembered a field of oats which was just sprouting about the time he fell in the trance. The same field was now standing in corn knee-high. After his recovery from the trance he rapidly became worse and died in eighteen months. There is a record of a man near Rochester, N.Y., who slept for five years, never waking for more than sixteen hours at a time, and then only at intervals of six weeks or over. When seized with his trance he weighed 160, but he dwindled down to 90 pounds. He pa.s.sed urine once or twice a day, and had a stool once in from six to twenty days. Even such severe treatment as counter-irritation proved of no avail. Gunson mentions a man of forty-four, a healthy farmer, who, after being very wet and not changing his clothes, contracted a severe cold and entered into a long and deep sleep lasting for twelve hours at a time, during which it was impossible to waken him. This attack lasted eight or nine months, but in 1848 there was a recurrence accompanied by a slight trismus which lasted over eighteen months, and again in 1860 he was subjected to periods of sleep lasting over twenty-four hours at a time. Blaudet describes a young woman of eighteen who slept forty days, and again after her marriage in her twentieth year she slept for fifty days; it was necessary to draw a tooth to feed her. Four years later, on Easter day, 1862, she became insensible for twelve months, with the exception of the eighth day, when she awoke and ate at the table, but fell asleep in the chair. Her sleep was so deep that nothing seemed to disturb her; her pulse was slow, the respirations scarcely perceptible, and there were apparently no evacuations.

Weir Mitch.e.l.l collected 18 cases of protracted sleep, the longest continuing uninterruptedly for six months. Chilton's case lasted seventeen weeks. Six of the 18 cases pa.s.sed a large part of each day in sleep, one case twenty-one hours, and another twenty-three hours. The patients were below middle life; ten were females, seven males, and one was a child whose s.e.x was not given. Eight of the 18 recovered easily and completely, two recovered with loss of intellect, one fell a victim to apoplexy four months after awakening, one recovered with insomnia as a sequel, and four died in sleep. One recovered suddenly after six months' sleep and began to talk, resuming the train of thought where it had been interrupted by slumber. Mitch.e.l.l reports a case in an unmarried woman of forty-five. She was a seamstress of dark complexion and never had any previous symptoms. On July 20, 1865, she became seasick in a gale of wind on the Hudson, and this was followed by an occasional loss of sight and by giddiness. Finally, in November she slept from Wednesday night to Monday at noon, and died a few days later. Jones of New Orleans relates the case of a girl of twenty-seven who had been asleep for the last eighteen years, only waking at certain intervals, and then remaining awake from seven to ten minutes. The sleep commenced at the age of nine, after repeated large doses of quinin and morphin. Periods of consciousness were regular, waking at 6 A.M. and every hour thereafter until noon, then at 3 P.M., again at sunset, and at 9 P.M., and once or twice before morning. The sleep was deep, and nothing seemed to arouse her. Gairdner mentions the case of a woman who, for one hundred and sixty days, remained in a lethargic stupor, being only a mindless automaton. Her life was maintained by means of the stomach tube. The Revue d'Hypnotisme contains the report of a young woman of twenty-five, who was completing the fourth year of an uninterrupted trance. She began May 30, 1883, after a fright, and on the same day, after several convulsive attacks, she fell into a profound sleep, during which she was kept alive by small quant.i.ties of liquid food, which she swallowed automatically. The excretions were greatly diminished, and menstruation was suppressed. There is a case reported of a Spanish soldier of twenty-two, confined in the Military Hospital of San Ambrosio, Cuba, who had been in a cataleptic state for fourteen months. His body would remain in any position in which it was placed; defecation and micturition were normal; he occasionally sneezed or coughed, and is reported to have uttered some words at night. The strange feature of this case was that the man was regularly nourished and increased in weight ten pounds. It was noted that, some months before, this patient was injured and had suffered extreme depression, which was attributed to nostalgia, after which he began to have intermittent and temporary attacks, which culminated as related.

Camuset and Planes in January, 1896, mention a man who began to have grand hallucinations in 1883. In March, 1884, he exhibited the first signs of sleep, and on March 10th it was necessary to put him to bed, where he remained, more or less continuously for three months, awakening gradually, and regaining his normal condition by the middle of June. He was fed by hand three times daily, was placed on a night-chair, and with one exception never evacuated in bed. Five months afterward he showed no signs of relapse. The latest report of a "sleeping girl" is that of the young Dutch maiden, Maria Cvetskens, of Stevenswerth, who on December 5, 1895, had been asleep for two hundred and twenty days. She had been visited by a number of men of good professional standing who, although differing as to the cause of her prolonged sleep, universally agreed that there was no deception in the case. Her parents were of excellent repute, and it had never occurred to them to make any financial profit out of the unnatural state of their daughter.

Hypnotism.--The phenomenon of hypnotism was doubtless known to the Oriental nations, and even to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, as well as to other nations since the downfall of the Roman Empire. "The fakirs of India, the musicians of Persia, the oracles of Greece, the seers of Rome, the priests and priestesses of Egypt, the monastic recluses of the Middle Ages, the ecstatics of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century exhibited many symptoms that were, and are still, attributed by religious enthusiasts to supernatural agencies, but which are explainable by what we know of hypnotism. The Hesychasts of Mount Athos who remained motionless for days with their gaze directed steadily to the navel; the Taskodrugites who remained statuesque for a long period with the finger applied to the nose; the Jogins who could hibernate at will; the Dandins of India who became cataleptoid by 12,000 repet.i.tions of the sacred word Om; St. Simeon Stylites who, perched on a lofty pillar, preserved an att.i.tude of saint-like withdrawal from earthly things for days; and even Socrates, of whom it was said that he would stand for hours motionless and wordless--all these are probable instances of autohypnotism." (Gray.)

Hypnotism is spoken of as a morbid mental state artificially produced, and characterized by perversion or suspension of consciousness, and abeyance of volition; a condition of suggestibility leads the patient to yield readily to commands of external sense-impressions, and there is intense concentration of the mental faculties upon some idea or feeling. There are several methods of inducing hypnosis, one of which is to give particular direction to the subject's imagination by concentrating the attention upon an arbitrary point, or by raising an image of the hypnotic state in the patient's mind. The latter is most readily induced by speech. Faria formerly strained the attention of the subject as much as possible, and suddenly called out, "Sleep!" This method has been used by others. Physical methods consist of certain stimuli of sight, hearing, and touch. Taste and smell have generally given negative results. Fixation of the gaze has been the most successful, but the ticking of a watch has been used. According to Moll, among uncivilized races particular instruments are used to produce similar states, for example, the magic drum's sound among the Lapps, or among other races the monotony of rhythm in song, etc.