A very curious affection, known as the “Sleepy Disease,” has been described as endemic in certain regions of Africa. The following extract[143] gives a graphic description of the malady:
“Having procured a guide, we crossed the river, and at the mouth of Logan’s Creek we exchanged our boat for a large canoe, in which we followed the windings of the deep and narrow inlet for nearly two miles. This brought us to a village of six huts. Without ceremony we entered the dwelling of the old queen (who was busied about her household affairs), and looked around for her granddaughter, to see whom was the principal object of our excursion. On my former visit to Maumee’s town, four or five months ago, this girl excited a great deal of admiration by her beauty and charming simplicity. She was then thirteen or fourteen years of age—a bright mulatto, with large and soft black eyes, and the most brilliantly white teeth in the world. Her figure, though small, is perfectly symmetrical. She is the darling of the old queen, whose affections exhaust themselves upon her with all the passionate fire of her temperament, and the more unreasonably because the girl’s own mother is dead.
“We entered the hut, as I have said, without ceremony, and looked about us for the beautiful granddaughter; but, on beholding the object of our search, a kind of remorse and dread came over us, such as often affects those who intrude upon the awfulness of slumber. The girl lay asleep in the adjoining apartment, on a mat that was spread over the hard ground, and with no pillow beneath her cheek. One arm was by her side, the other above her head, and she slept so quietly, and drew such imperceptible breath, that I scarcely thought her alive.
“With some little difficulty she was aroused, and awoke with a frightened cry,—a strange and broken murmur,—as if she were looking dimly out of her sleep, and knew not whether our figures were real, or only the fantasies of a dream. Her eyes were wild and glassy, and she seemed to be in pain. While awake, there was a nervous twitching about her mouth and in her fingers; but, being again extended upon the mat, and left to herself, these symptoms of disquietude passed away, and she almost immediately sank again into the deep and heavy sleep in which we found her. As her eyes gradually closed their lids, the sunbeams struggling through the small crevices between the reeds of the hut glimmered down about her head. Perhaps it was only the nervous motion of her fingers, but it seemed as if she were trying to catch the golden rays of the sun and make playthings of them, or else to draw them into her soul and illuminate the slumber that looked so misty and dark to us.
“This poor doomed girl had been suffering—no, not suffering; for, except when forcibly aroused, there appeared to be no uneasiness,—but she had been lingering two months in a disease peculiar to Africa: it is called the ‘Sleepy Disease,’ and is considered incurable. The persons attacked by it are those who take little exercise, and live principally on vegetables, particularly cassady and rice. Some ascribe it altogether to the cassady, which is supposed to be strongly narcotic—not improbably the climate has much influence, the disease being most prevalent in low and marshy situations. Irresistible drowsiness continually weighs down the patient, who can be kept awake only for the few moments necessary to take a little food. When this lethargy has lasted three or four months, death comes with a tread that the patient cannot hear—and makes the slumber but a little more sound.
“I found the aspect of Maumee’s beautiful granddaughter inconceivably affecting. It was strange to behold her so quietly involved in sleep from which it might be supposed she would awake so full of youthful life, and yet to know that this was no refreshing slumber, but a spell in which she was fading away from the eyes that loved her. Whatever might chance, be it grief or joy, the effect would be the same. Whoever should shake her by the arm—whether the accents of a friend fell fully on the ear, or those of strangers like ourselves,—the only response would be that troubled cry, as of a spirit that hovered on the confines of both worlds and could have sympathy with neither. And yet, withal, it seemed so easy to cry to her, ‘Awake! Enjoy your life! Cast off this noontide slumber!’ But only the peal of the last trumpet will summon her out of that mysterious sleep.”
Another and later account of this singular disease has recently been given by M. Dumoutier,[144] surgeon in the French Navy.
According to this observer, the affection commonly called the “sleep-disease” (maladie du sommeil) is met with only among the negroes of the coast, and principally those of the Gaboon and of Congo, becoming more rare towards the north. The most prominent symptoms are an irresistible tendency to sleep, and a feeling of torpor and numbness. The patient does not complain of pain, and yet there is a general weakness of the limbs, the gait is tottering, the sensibility is perverted, and the hands imperfectly grasp the objects they attempt to seize. During the sleep the fecal matters and the urine are passed involuntarily. The respiration is normal, and the digestion regular. These were the principal symptoms observed in those cases which came under M. Dumoutier’s notice: observing the disease only in the persons of captives coming from the interior, he ascribes it to nostalgia, ennui, and other moral causes. Two autopsies made by his colleagues revealed no abnormal condition of the brain, the spinal cord, or their membranes.
The treatment employed—quinia, strychnia, and iron—had no effect. A temporary improvement was obtained by causing the patients to take part in the amusements of their companions. Electricity seemed likewise to retard somewhat the progress of the disease.
The fact that no organic difficulty of the brain was discovered after death, is strong proof that the somnolency was due to some cause affecting the intra-cranial circulation. That the amount of blood was lessened, and that thus a permanent anæmia of the brain was produced, can scarcely be doubted, when regard is had to the observations and experiments recorded in the foregoing pages of this work. Probably the primary derangement was seated in the sympathetic nerve and its ganglia, it having been well settled by familiar observations, and by recent contributions to physiology and pathology, that one of the chief functions of this system is to regulate the caliber of the blood-vessels, and thus to determine the amount of blood circulating through an organ or part of the body.