Sleep and its phenomena : an essay / by James N. Pinkerton.

  • Pinkerton, James N.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sleep and its phenomena : an essay / by James N. Pinkerton. 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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    who, whilst smoking his pipe, fell fast asleep, and yet retained his pipe within his teeth, and continued smoking the whole time; indeed, similar instances are not rare in that country. Professor Stewart, in his “ Elements of Moral Philosophy,” supposes that the will is not actually suspended during sleep, but that it loses its influence over those faculties which are subject to it during our waking state; but the considerations which he offers in proof of his opinion, merely tend to shew that this suspension is not complete (as we have above stated to be the case occasionally in incomplete sleep), but do not prove that volition is not suspended during profound sleep. At the same time, however, that the exercise of the external senses and of voluntary motion is either altogether or partially suspended, the body appears to retain its suscep- tibility to the usual external stimuli, and thus we are sensible during sleep of pain and uneasiness of various kinds; and although not awakened