Essential somnambulism occurs in many persons (says Dr. Good) without any manifest predisponent cause, though it is generally con nected with a considerable irritability of habit. A morbid state of the stomach, where this habit exists, has very frequently proved an exciting cause ; and where this is the case, the attention of the phy sician must of course be directed to that quarter. With respect to the mode of treatment during the fit, though it has sometimes been reeminnended to employ violent means, so as to awaken the somnam bulist suddenly, and to repeat this as often as the attacks come on, until they have completely ceased ; yet M. Bertrand warns us against eucli a proceeding. " If, in the place," says he, " sensibility is completely extinguished, all the means employed to awaken the somnambulist will be useless ; secondly, even when it is possible to awaken him at once, the sudden shock produces serious quences; thirdly, as soninambulism is often the result of a salutary crisis of nature, one is never sure of not hurting the patient by sup pressing it ; and, lastly, the sudden suspension of habit of the animal economy that has been contracted for a long timo, must in all cases be attended with danger." He adds that the best plan is to try to put oneself in connection with the patient by entering into the course of ideas by which he is occupied during the attack, and so endeavour to direct him in a reasonable manner.
II. Symptomatic or Morbid Somnambulism generally presents itself as one of the phenomena attending catalepsy. [Cavatsysv.] This form of somnambulism does not appear to have been noticed by the ancients ; but there are many cases on record long before the time of Mesmer, as well as others described by persons unacquainted with and oven opposed to the doctrines of animal magnetism. The following case is given by Colquhoun, on the authority of Sauvages, and may be found in greater detail in the ' Hist. de l'Academie des Sciences,' for the year 1742 : A girl of twenty years of age was frequently attacked with cata leptic insensibility, during which she continued and deprived of all sensation, whether standing, sitting, or lying, in the position she might happen to be in at the time of the commencement of the attack, and she could be pushed forward, like a statue, when it was wished to remove her from one place to another. Sho was afterwards placed in a state, which commenced with the same deprivation of sense and *notion, but at intervals presented a wonderful kind of animation. She first became motionless, then, some minutes afterwards, she began to yawn, sat up on the bed, and enacted the following scene, which she repeated at least fifty times. She spoke with an unusual liveliness and cheerfulness, and what she said woe a continuation of what else had spoken in her previous fit, or a repetition of some part of the catechism which she had heard read on the preceding evening. She frequently addressed her acquaintances in the house, and sometimes made ironical applications of moral apophthegms to them under feigned names with open eyes, and such gestures as she had made the previous evening. That during all this time she was not awake, was clear from variouk experiments. A hand was suddenly passed near her eyes, without during any motion in the eyelids or any attempt to evade it, or inter.
smiting her speech in the slightest degree. The same thing happened when a finger was suddenly approached close to her eye, or a burnins taper held so near to it that the hair of her eyelids was actually burnt, and also when any one called loudly into her ear from behind, or threw a stone against the bedstead. Nay more, brandy and spirit of horn were poured into her eyes and mouth ; Spanish snuff was blown into her nostrils ; she was pricked with needles; her fingers west wrenched; the ball of her eye was touched with a feather, and even with the : yet she manifested not the slightest sensation. Durins these trances she always began to speak with more than usual animation ; moon afterwards, elle sang and laughed aloud, attempted to get out of bed, and at length sprang out of it and uttered a cry of joy. She kept the middle way between the bedsteads as well as when awake, and never came against them—turned dexterously round between the bed• steals and a concealed closet, without ever groping her way or touchins the objects; and after turning round, she returned to her bed, covered herself with the clothes, and again became stiff as at the commence ment. She then awoke as if from a profound sleep, and when she per ceived, from the appearance of the bystanders, that she must have had her fits again, she wept the whole day for shame, and never knew what had happened to her during the paroxysm. The above is by no means one of the most wonderful cases of somnambulism occuring during a cataleptic seizure, but it has been chosen on account of the respect able authority on which it rests. Those recorded by 31. Petetin (' Memoirs sur la Deconverte dee PlidnoinSnes qua presentent la Cate lepsie et le Somnambulism°, &c.,' 1787 ; and Electricit6 Animals prouvee par LA Ddeouverte des Plidnouthuis Physiques et Moraux de Is Catalepsie Ilysterique, et de see Varietde, Lyon, 1808), are not pedlars less authentic.
III. Artificial Somnambulism, or that which is occasioned by the proceedings employed in animal magnetism, is not expressly mentioned by any ancient writer, but some linos by Solon, and a verse in Plautus Amphitr.' i. 1-157) have been supposed by some persons to allude to these manipulations. As an account of the doctrines of Mesmer has been already given under the head of ANIMAL MAONETISM, it will be sufficient here to refer to the ' Rapport sur les Experiences 3Lagnetiques faites par la Commission do ]'Academia Royale de Medecine [b. Paris], lu dans les Seances des 21 et 28 Juin,1831, par M. Husson, Itapporteur.' With respect to the phenomenon of somnambulism as caused by mesmerism, or animal magnetism, so much credulity and deception have been brought to light in connection with it, that a person cannot be too cautious in sifting and weighing the evidence on which each of the alleged instances rests ; but after all this mass of knavery and folly has been cleared away, there still remain a large number of iustances which cannot be disbelieved without discarding all historical evidence whatever. For more information on the subject the reader may con sult, besides the works already quoted, the Rev. Chauncey Towns bend's work on Somnambulism, and ' Le 31agnetisme Animal en Franco,' by M. Bertrand, Paris, 1826.