On a theory of sleep / [John Ashburner].

  • Ashburner, John, 1793-1878
Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a theory of sleep / [John Ashburner]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of these are prejudiced and obstinate, and like men of small minds, wait for the bidding of their leaders, others indulge in paltry pride or envy, and some few are sincere, but, like timid hares, are frightened at consequences that may result to them if they stop to enquire. Charity must teach us to forgive them, for their feelings blind some of them, while with others the sordid care of their own interests absorbs the higher and more philosophical—the purer and more elevated sense of their sacred mission ! Mr. Noad's ingenuity in divising a new instrument, has enabled me to come to the conclusion that, however the minute structure of the cerebral and nervous tissue may be arranged to produce results analogous to electricity, a direct current passed from the brain to the extremities tends to soothe the individual, to induce a sense of quietude, somnolence, sleep or rigid spasm; that an inverse current passed from the extremities to the brain establishes the reverse ; wakefulness, restlessness, inquietude, pain. The direct current is attractive, the inverse current is repulsive. In mesmerism, the down¬ ward passes are analogous to the direct current, and produce quietude, sleep, and its natural sequences, while the upward and all other dispersing passes are like the inverse currents, their effects being similar. The phenomena offered by the magnet, by certain metals, by crystals, by the exertion of the will, bear out the conclusion, that sleep results from the attractive agencies of the brain, and that vigilance is owing to a repulsive power exerted by that organ. It is very interesting to read back into Locke/ and to observe the wanderings of his great mind on the subject of sleep. Had the phenomena of mesmerism been studied in his day with the lights that shine so brilliantly now from the labours of Faraday and of Yon Reichenbach, I think he must have arrived at the conclusion that the phenomena which so much puzzled him were produced by attractive agencies, and that even indolent quietude of thought with costive emission of ideas were dependant upon the same cause, while wakeful¬ ness and activity of thought were dependant upon repulsive agencies. His vast powers of “ reflection” would have cleared up during his study of somnambulism all the questions as to the identity of Socrates awake and Socrates asleep. The best respect that can be paid to his great genius, is to suppose that he would not have spurned the use of any of those torches that are lighting us to the Temple of Truth. It will easily be perceived that the agencies of attraction and repul¬ sion have a very wide range in explaining difficult questions f Essay on the Human Understanding, b. ii., cap. i., § 11, 12, 13, 14.