and early manhood, for at these periods we are very constant somnambulists; not so in the passive state of old age, in which sleep-walking is very rare. Something of this we see also in the growing pains and fidgets of girls and those whose duties are sedentary. Exercise is the relief for all this.

Now when the sleep-walk has exhausted this excess of irritability or electricity (if it be so), the dreamer returns to bed and sleep. A hint is here thrown out to us, that if powerful exertion be employed previous to sleep, the night-walk might not

ensue.

lism.

Lethargy often terminates in somnambu

If I may for another moment still prose over the intricate, but deeply interesting question of the pathology of somnambulism, I will observe, that we often find it one symptom of madness or idiocy, and we know that somnambulism not seldom terminates in epilepsy.

In the brains of epileptic idiots, who are very determined somnambulists, we discover changes the most various: effusion, congestion, ossification of membranes, ramollissement, indurcissement, bony spicule, or points pressing the brain, tubercles, cysts. In some, the scull assumes the density of ivory. Yet in those persons who have been known to be sleep-walkers, the inspection is seldom satisfactory. Plethora of the head has often, however, preceded the sleep-walk. Signor Pozzi, physician to Benedict XIV., if he submitted not to depletion each second month, became a somnambulist; and we have known that in chorea, previous to the dance, and in some cases of somnambulism also, pain has been felt from the occiput along the course of the spinal marrow. This is from immediate excitement; but dyspepsia and other abdominal derange

ments may so influence the ganglia and nerves of organic life, and, through them, the brain and cord, as to excite sleep-walking by remote sympathy.

That injuries of the nervous matter about the nape of the neck are of the highest importance in our studies of these eccentric actions, is certain. The experiments of Flourens show that the progressive or forward motion of animals is influenced by varied states of the cerebellum. When Magendie cut through the corpora striata, the animal darted forward; when the pons Varolii was cut, the animal rolled over sixty times in a minute.

When a soldier is struck by a ball about the cervical vertebra, he often springs from the ground and drops dead.

It is our duty, then, not to slight the condition of the somnambulist. If simple irritation be its exciting cause, much benefit may be derived from counter-action on the surface, and other remedial means. Even if there be diseased structure, some palliation may be afforded. As preventives of the fit, we may inculcate an abstinence from late meals, exercise in the evening previous to retirement to rest, a high pillow, &c.

If the propensity continue in spite of our efforts, it will be right to have the windows fastened or locked, and the door of the chamber bolted without; or to confine the ankle or wrist to the bedpost by a long fillet, which may, by its detention, awake the sleeper on starting from the bed.

IMITATIVE MONOMANIA.

"Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run,
As it were doomsday."-Julius Cæsar.

THERE are other very curious analogies of somnambulism which are marked by a power of action

that appears preternatural. And here again we witness the irresistibility of motion, which seems to subvert the laws of gravitation and the principles of mechanics. The involuntary twitchings and contortions of St. Vitus's dance present the slighter form of these eccentric actions, which, in the intense degree, become like the fury of a raving maniac.

In young girls there often is a proneness to be excited by slight causes-to be startled by mere trifles.

Savary tells us of a man who, at two o'clock each day, was irresistibly impelled to rap at doors and make very odd noises, and felt intense pleasure in doing this. If this had occurred in the night, it would have been termed somnambulism.

Gall also relates of a young man at Berlin, who, after rolling about in his bed for some time, and jumping out and in repeatedly in his sleep, at last started up awake, astonished at the crowd around his bed. And Dr. Darwin writes of a boy nine years old, who went through a course of gymnastics, with an occasional song between the acts. At length he seemed bursting, and soon sank down in a stupor.

ASTR. I have read (I think in Mezeray) of an epidemic mania of this sort, in which the creatures tore off their clothes, and ran naked through the streets and churches, until they fell breathless on the ground. Some of them swelled even to bursting, unless they were bound down by cords. The disease was referred to the agency of demons, and treated by exorcisms, they even tore their flesh to free themselves from their possessing devils. I have seen also a confident story of some nuns, who jumped so high during an hysteric ecstasy, that they were at length seen to fly; in imitation,

perhaps, of the Corybantes, the priests of Cybele, who, in the celebration of their mysteries, leaped and raved, like madmen in the midst of their shrieks and howlings.

Ev. All these eccentricities amount to complete monomania for the time they last, and they are marked often by a very violent imitative propensity, like the delirium which came upon the Abderites on witnessing the performance of the " Andromeda" of Euripides by Archelaüs. Of such nature was the "dancing mania" of the Middle Ages; the tarantula of Apulia, in which melancholy was succeeded by madness; the feats of the Jumpers of Cornwall, and the Convulsionnaires of the Parisian miracles.

Yet, with all this apparent violence, there might be a power of control by management. On some sudden and extreme mental influence, there was in the Maison de la Charité at Haerlem an infectious convulsion of this nature, so that the troop of little scholars, girls and boys, were a mere legion of dancing maniacs, and nothing appeared to relieve them until a ruse of the physician Boerhaave put to flight the illusion. With a solemn voice he pronounced, in the hearing of the little creatures, his decision that each of them should be burned to the bone of the arm with a red-hot iron. From that moment the mania subsided.

Dr. Hecker, in his account of the Dance of the Middle Ages, notices two forms of this national monomania-" Tarantulism," and the "Danse de Saint Guy."

The first was marked by all sorts of illusions, demonomania, obscene dancing, groaning, and falling down senseless.

The persons who believed themselves bitten by the tarantula became sad and stupid. The flute or

guitar alone could give them succour. At the sound of its music they awoke, as if by enchantment; their eyes opened; their movements, which at first slowly followed the music, gradually became animated, until they merged into an impassioned dance. To interrupt the music was disastrous: the patients relapsed into their stupidity, until they became exhausted by fatigue. During the attacks, several singular idiosyncracies were manifested, contrary to what occurred in Germany. Scarlet was a favourite colour, though some preferred green or yellow. A no less remarkable phenomenon was their ardent longing for the sea; they implored to be carried to its shores, or to be surrounded by marine pictures; some even threw themselves into the waves. But the dominant passion was for music, though they varied in their ticular tastes. Some sought the braying sound of the trumpet, others the softer harmony of stringed instruments.

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There was once a woman of Piedmont who was charmed by the "capriccio," played by the leader of an orchestra, into an ecstatic dance. In her, the sensations, as she expressed them, were so "strangely mingled" as powerfully to illustrate the fine line of distinction between pleasure and pain. She gradually became weaker, and the memory of the music was so intense, that, while she was irresistibly impelled to this maniacal dance, her expressions were those of acute pain, and her cries were constantly of those "horrid sounds." In six months this unhappy creature died exhausted.

The Tigretier of Abyssinia is believed in Africa to be the effect of demoniac influence. Indeed, there is in this strange state a complete metamorphosis of features, and voice, and manner. In the hearts, even, of the women, the affections of nature