was stigmatized as a gross and almost defamatory personal attack; it was resented and repaid by virulent abuse and the most captious criticism; and a great effort was made to destroy the reputation of the best work on insanity which had till then appeared. 1 Strong in the simplicity of truth and innocence, Spurzheim stood unmoved. His feelings were wounded, but he knew he was in the right, and feared not for the result. The storm passed over and was apparently forgotten; but two short years after, clinical lectures on insanity were announced, and pupils regularly admitted to the visits where no such instruction, was obtainable before; and, to his honour be it said, Esquirol, who, we have been informed, really believed himself aimed at by Dr Spurzheim, was the man who led the way in this new and un tried field: and he has since ably been supported, In regard to Mr Duncan's second suggestion we may men tion, that a lectureship on mental diseases was established in Edinburgh about ten years ago, by Dr Morrison, the author of some very sensible works on the subject. Dr Morrison was bound to give one course annually, which he did for several years. From some cause or other these lectures have of late been discontinued. The lectureship, however, yet stands in the Edinburgh Almanac among the existing things. The soundness of Mr Duncan's remark, that the chance of cure is much greater in large asylums than in small, is not only deducible from the principles of physiology, but likewise demonstrated by experience. Even in the healthy condition, solitude, or a too limited, circle of associates, is very prejudicial to the mind, by withholding from the social feelings their appropriate stimulus and food, and by giving undue ascendancy to the selfish propensities; and these evil consequences are greatly aggravated by the presence of disease. The success attending the mode of treatment adopted by Dr Ellis, in the large Pauper Asylum at Hanwell, (of which some account will be found in our 41st Number), shews, in a very striking man. ner, the utility of social intercourse, active employment, and a proper classification of the insane. We repeat, that we insert Mr Duncan's paper with great satisfaction; because, although it does not contain any thing strictly new, his views are important and well brought out; and it is only by the repeated agitation of a subject that all its bearings come to be perceived and appreciated. We think the author would derive much gratification from the careful perusal of Dr Spurzheim's treatise.-EDITOR. 7 ARTICLE IV. MR CARMICHAEL'S EXAMINATION OF MR MACNISH'S OBJECTIONS TO HIS THEORY OF SLEEP, IN THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL FOR DECEMBER 1834. Mr MACNISH has set me an admirable example in the good temper and kindly feeling with which he has combated my hypothesis of the proximate cause of sleep. I trust I shall be able to convince him that my views are rational and well grounded, notwithstanding his objections; and I still more anxiously hope, that, in executing my task, if I have not his abilities, I have at least a wish to imitate his courtesy in our common pursuit, the ascertainment of a curious and interesting, even though it be an unimportant, truth. My proposition is, that "The Process of Assimilation in the Brain is the Actual Cause of Sleep; but Mr Macnish cannot conceive how a natural and healthy deposition of new particles should occasion a cessation in the functions of any organ: he argues, that "before such a deposition can take place, there must be an augmented circulation of blood in the part; and that the greater the quantity of blood sent to an organ, the greater is the energy of its manifestations. During sleep," he adds, "the blood is propelled in greater abundance into the liver and stomach than in the waking state; the consequence of which is, that these viscera act more vigorously, and that digestion is carried on with increased activity." And he asks, "Why should the brain be an exception to this general law?"* That the brain is an exception to this general law is the opinion of Blumenbach and other physiologists, including Mr Macnish himself.+ Blumenbach even considers the diminished or impeded flow of oxygenated blood to the brain as the proximate cause of sleep. His able and learned translator observes, 66 Analogy renders it extremely probable that during the inactivity of sleep, the brain, having less occasion for arterial blood, has a less vigorous circulation than during the waking state; and we know that whatever diminishes the ordinary determination of blood to the brain, or impairs the movement of the blood through it, disposes to sleep. But although this be granted, it must be viewed, not as the cause, but as a circumstance, or, in fact, a consequence, of ordinary sleep." § RiPhrenological Journal, No. xlii. p. 176. + Id. 177. Elliotson's translation of Blumenbach's Physiology, p. 282. Lond. 1828. 6 cherand expresses the same opinion: "During sleep the inward or assimilating functions are going on; digestion, absorption, circulation, respiration, secretion, nutrition, are carried on; some, as absorption and nutrition, with more energy than during waking, whilst others are evidently slackened. During sleep the pulse is slower and weaker; inspiration is less frequent; insensible perspiration, and all other humours derived from the blood, are separated in smaller quantity." "While it lasts, the cerebral mass collapses; a sign that the flow of blood into it is remarkably lessened." + My theory, therefore, did not, as he supposed, lead Mr Macnish to conclude that the brain is least active when the circulation is most urgently at work within its substance. On the contrary, it appears that, in accordance with my theory, while the brain is least active, so is also the circulation within its substance. He calls upon me, however, to shew" that assimilation may proceed with increased activity, without any additional impulse being given to the circulation;" and allows that, if I shall do so, my doctrine may then acquire plausibility.‡ This is easily done,for, as already noticed, Mr Macnish himself admits that so far from there being any increase of blood in the brain during healthy sleep, it is proved that the circulating fluid is actually lessened" and he even goes so far as to state that sleep is the period in which the regeneration of the body chiefly takes place. And Darwin shews the mode by which it may be rationally supposed that this is accomplished. He argues that all the filaments composing the solid parts of the body, have possessed, or do possess, the power of contraction, and of consequent inertion or elongation; and that it seems probable that the nutritive particles are applied during their times of elongation, when their original constituent particles are removed to a greater distance from each other. For," he continues, "each muscular or sensual fibre may be considered as a row or string of beads, which approach when in contraction, and recede during its rest or elongation; and our daily experience shews us, that great action emaciates the system, and that it is repaired during rest.” ¶ But, still more closely to meet Mr Macnish's challenge, is it necessary to remind him, that during the over-accelerated circulation of the blood which attends fever, the secretions of the several glands are more or less disturbed, and are sometimes even interrupted altogether; while the first effect of a return Richerand's Physiology, p. 344. Lond. 1815. Philosophy of Sleep, 2d edition, 21. + Id. 347. § Id. 177. ¶ Zoönomia, § 37-3. Vol. i. of the Dublin edition of 1800, p. 529. to a slow circulation is the restoration of those performance, of raving, and restlessness give way to a deep, profound and megapla lengthened sleep--the exhausted brain is renewed and invigo adis rated the crisis is past, and sanity of mind is rapidly succeeded by sanity of body to styles their healthy functions? Thans to a due Again, is it necessary to remind Mr Macnish, that one of the earliest consequences of inflammation upon any secreting organ is a cessation of its functions; and that these functions cannot be restored until the inflammation is allayed, and the circulation reduced within its ordinary bounds? It follows from all these facts, that increased activity in the circulation may in impede instead of impelling the process of assimilation; but, to come still closer to the point at issue, I have already cited Rited cherand's observation, that nutrition is carried on during sleep with more energy than during waking. He says elsewhere, that nutrition is but a peculiar mode of secretion, which is different in every organ; and he continues, The nerves, of which there is always a certain number in the structure of the secretory organs, give to each of them a peculiar sensibility, by means of which they discover in the blood which the vessels bring to them, the materials of the fluid which they are destined to secrete, and these they appropriate to themselves by a real selection." 4 Permit me to add, that the complicated form of the glands, consisting as well of nerves as of a number of vessels of all kinds, whose convoluted arrangements and capillary calibre must necessarily impede and lessen the rapidity of the fluids circulating in them, apparently indicate a slowness of motion as one of the conditions by which of the conditions by which the peculiar secretion is produced; the slowness of the circulation, therefore, in the brain seems happily fitted for the production of the nervous substance that fine and exquisite soil, intended by the Author of Nature for the nurture of the thoughts, the passions, and the powers of action. Another condition is, that there should be nerves to select from the circulating fluid, the appropriate ma terials, the scattered ingredients of this soil whether the brain itself performs this office, or whether it contains a peculiar machinery for the purpose, is a question that must be left to future physiologists to decide, but if the accessions of new par ticles be considerable, it is not very irrational to suppose that the as yet unassimilated mass should act like an extraneous body on the delicate structure of the brain, and paralyze its powers of thinking, feeling, and willing, until perfectly assimilated with the original organ.2015 I have nothing to object to Mr Macnish's observation that I + Id. 231. Richerand, 230. look upon sleep" being occasioned purely by mechanical compression, or something closely resembling it." The whole of my hypothesis rests in the supposition that the new mass of particles acts like an extraneous body on the cerebral substance, and occasions the paralysis of sleep,-a healthy and natural paralysis, very different from the paralysis of disease occasioned by "the effusion of blood, or serum, or purulent matter," or "the beating in of a portion of the skull-cap on the brain." "But," asks Mr Macnish," supposing that healthy sleep is always occasioned by mechanical compression, how are we to account for people being so easily awakened? What, in such a case, becomes of this pressure? Is the load at once lifted off the person's brain? What becomes of the assimilative particles which are squeezing his senses out of him and submerging him under the billows of sleep?” † People are not always so easily awakened as MrMacnish here supposes. It is true, very trifling causes will awake a person who has taken nearly his full complement of sleep, or who is not constitutionally what is called a heavy sleeper. But do we never hear of an individual that could not be roused from an intense sleep by any effort to awaken him? and who has even been carried asleep from his chamber amidst the alarm of fire or of flood? Which of us, if suddenly disturbed in the middle of the night, has not started from bed half asleep and half awake? which of us has not occasionally felt that species of headach, which scarcely amounts to pain, and is little more than a lethargic and sluggish inertness, accompanied by mental confusion and ineptitude, occasioned apparently by the pressure of the new nervous particles not yet perfectly assimilated ?" + Does it not sometimes require considerable exertion, whether muscular or mental, to keep ourselves awake? But if we gradually shake off the pressure, the load is not at once but dually lifted off the brain; "the assimilative particles which are squeezing our senses out of us" entering into perfect assimilation with the substance of the brain, and becoming adequate instruments of perception and reflection, feeling and willoperations in which they never had assisted before. But in the natural course of things, this perfect assimilation takes place before our awaking senses bring us into communication with the external world; and as organ after organ becomes fitted for exercise, the thoughts in which it is engaged are embodied in a dream. gra It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose, that "one part of the brain may be fattening while another is starving;" the fat • Phrenological Journal, No. xlii. p. 177. See Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine, liv. 326. VOL. IX.-NO. XLIV. + Id. ib. X |
