“I deny not that the darkness or stillness of night may have had some influence during this inspiration. I may also allow that some individuals compose best while they are walking, but this peripatetic exertion is calculated itself to produce what we term determination of blood to the head. I have heard of a most remarkable instance of the power of position in influencing mental energy in a German student who was accustomed to study and compose with his head on the ground, and his feet elevated and resting against the wall.
“And this is a fragment of a passage from Tissot, on the subject of monomania.
“——‘Nous avons vu étudier dans cette académie, il n’y a pas long temps, un jeune homme de mérite, qui s’étant mis dans la tête de découvrir la quadrature du cercle, est mort, fou, à l’Hôtel Dieu à Paris.’[135]
“You will smile when I tell you that the tints of the landscape are brighter to our eyes if we reverse the position of the head.”
Tissot, in the work to which reference has just been made, cites an instance in which position was taken advantage of to solve a problem in mathematics. A gentleman, remarkable for his accuracy in calculation, for a wager lay down on a bed and wrought, by mere strength of memory, a question in geometrical progression, while another person, in another apartment, performed the same operation with pen and ink. When both had finished, the one who had worked mentally repeated his product, which amounted to sixteen figures, and, insisting that the other gentleman was wrong, desired him to read over his different products. On this being done he pointed out the place where the first mistake lay, and which had run through the whole. He paid very dearly, however, for gaining his wager, as for a considerable time he had a swimming in his head, pains in his eyes, and severe headaches upon attempting any mathematical labor.
Sir Walter Scott has said somewhere, that the half hour passed in bed, after waking in the morning, was the part of the day during which he conceived his best thoughts.
Dr. Forbes Winslow[136] makes some excellent remarks upon the relations existing between position and wakefulness. He says:
“In some types of insanity the patient’s mind is altogether absorbed in the contemplation of a frightful spectral illusion. Under these circumstances the unhappy sufferer is afraid to close his eyes in sleep from an intense fear and dread that he will then fall an easy prey to the horrible phantasms which his morbid imagination has called into existence, and which, he imagines, follow him in all his movements. The patient so afflicted declares he will not sleep, and resolutely repudiates and perseveringly ignores all disposition to slumber. On many occasions he obstinately refuses to go to bed, or to place himself in a recumbent position. He will battle with his attendant if he attempts to convey him to bed. He insists on remaining in the chair, in standing in an erect position all night, and often determinately walks about the room when those near him are in profound repose. In these cases the hallucinations appear to be most exquisitely and acutely vivid when the patient is placed in a recumbent position, on account, it is supposed, of the mechanical facilities thus afforded for the blood gravitating freely to the head.
“A gentleman who appeared free during the day from any acute hallucinations, never could lie on his back without being distressingly harassed by a number of frightful imps, whom he imagined to be dancing fantastically around him during the night. Under these circumstances, undisturbed sleep, while in bed, could never be obtained. He was in the habit of sleeping in an arm-chair for some time in consequence of these symptoms. He, however, eventually recovered, and has been for several years entirely free from all hallucinations.”
It has frequently occurred to me to notice the increase in the number and intensity of the hallucinations of patients affected with delirium tremens as soon as they assumed the recumbent position. The difficulty of sleeping is in such cases always correspondingly augmented.