Ev. Nay, a truth. The irritability of plants is excited by their peculiar stimulus; when this is withdrawn, they fall to sleep. Most of the discous flowers turn to the sun in his course, as the sun-flower, the helianthus, and the croton. The acacia leaves at noon point towards the zenith. The tamarind, the oxalis, and the trefoil, fold their leaves on the exclusion of light. The evening primrose shuts its blossom at sunset, while that minion of the moon, the night-blowing cactus, then only begins to bloom; perhaps like the owl, and goat-sucker, and bat, who find the sun too powerful an excitant.
Vegetables may be put asleep by the withdrawal of proper stimulus,—the exclusion of this light. But this is a law of nature, and ordained for a special purpose. It is chiefly during fructification; the leaves at night folding round the flowers and seed-vessels, to protect them from the chilling blight of the night cold, which would congeal their juices. In this condition of the plant its irritability ceases, but the circulation of its sap-vessels is not suspended. Its vitality continues, but if the exercise of its peculiar phenomena be long discontinued, it will fade and die. Now the vis insita of the muscle resembles vegetable irritability; and, as this is lost and sensibility suspended, the body is indeed in a condition of vegetable sleep; for vegetables have not of course sensation, although the Darwinian romance would endow the dionæa, the hedysarum, and the mimosa with sensibility, and all the blossom-beauties of Flora with the fervour of sexual passion. Trance then is caused by the removal of a stimulus. As somnambulism may result from a redundancy of nervous energy, trance and catalepsy, as well as incubus, seem to arise from an inefficient secretion or supply of this quality, in whatever it may consist, or an impediment to its transmission from the sensorium or brain to the expansion of a nerve. Thus the motive power of a muscle is in these diseases suspended, which in paralysis may be permanently impaired or destroyed.
To describe this state, I must abound in negatives. The brain is not conscious: there is no sensation. Even the marrow by its reflex faculty does not excite a muscle: there is no action: the mind has no cognizance: the body is for a time paralyzed. What is there then which may be termed life? merely involuntary circulation and gentle breathing. In this condition also there is a congestion of dark blood about the brain and in the right side of the heart; the circulation being reduced to an extreme lentor or sluggishness, while in real asphyxia there is a total stagnation.
I have done with minute pathology: as there are however two diseases, epilepsy and insanity, which may be the result of catalepsy, I may offer a precept on the point. The propensity to trance cannot suddenly be averted, but the state of the body and mind are important studies for our treatment. Melancholy and apathy are the features of the mind of the cataleptic, and languor and faulty secretions the symptoms of the body. Cheerful society, sympathy with suffering, but firmness in resisting sloth and erroneous fancies, and the direction of the patient’s mind to moral recreations, comprehend the sum of our mental treatment.
It is equally essential to ensure regulation of the secretions, especially those of the liver. We should employ cupping from the nape of the neck, if there be pain, or heat, or fulness of the head, and constant but gentle exercise. The head should not be low during sleep, nor should food be taken within two hours of retiring to rest. I believe obedience to these slight precepts will frequently mitigate, perhaps in the end avert the attacks, especially if they have arisen from diseased conditions of the body, or gloomy or depraved studies, and deep contemplation.
The most simple or unconnected form of catalepsy, is that most likely to end in madness. Perhaps, too, in deep and gloomy subjects, which begin by absorbing mind and sense, the end is thus; so that cataleptic abstraction is but the reverie or foretaste of mania.
As to suspected cases of still existing vitality: where there is plethora, I would employ bleeding, or cupping, insufflation, Galvanism; and I should not in extreme cases fear acupuncture of the heart, and galvanic shocks then transmitted through the needle. Beclard, in “La Pitié,” in Paris, allows the needle to remain three or four minutes and then withdraws it, and I have learned from my oriental friends, that the Chinese practice this mode extensively.
MESMERISM.
“Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
Not as Death’s dart, being laugh’d at.”