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SPEC. II.

hearing

sometimes

in the wake

the organ of hearing may be roused in the same manner GEN. V. or exhibit the same anomaly; and, in this case, the Paroniria dreamer, who, under the influence of the last species of loquens. Sleep-talkaffection, is able to see as well as to walk, is able, under ing. the present, to hear as well as to speak. Examples, in- Organ of deed, are given in which a by-stander obtaining some clue into the train of thoughts of which the dream is com- associates posed, has been able, not only to keep up an irregular fulness: conversation, but, by dexterous management and the art- whence the ful assumption of a character which he finds introduced dreamer into the dream, to draw from the dreamer the profoundest as well as to secrets of his bosom, the dreaming ideas generally consist- speak. ing of those on which the dreamer is most employed conse when awake, or which lie nearest his heart. I have never met with a case of this kind in my own practice, but it is given as a fact by various physiologists from the time of the Greeks and Romans to our own day.

able to hear

Possible

quence of

this.

SPECIES III.

PARONIRIA SALAX.

Night-pollution.

THE SEXUAL ORGANS EXCITED INTO VENEREAL ACTION

BY THE FORCE OF THE IMAGINATION DURING DREAM-
ING.

GEN. V.

SPEC. III. Species

By Sauvages this affection is absurdly placed among the species of gonorrhoea, which, with great looseness of generic character is defined "passio cujus præcipuum placed errosymptoma est fluidi puriformis vel seminiformis effluxus neously by Sauvages: stillatitius ex urethrâ". This definition is, indeed, wide enough to embrace the affection before us; but the absurdity consists in intermixing a natural discharge produced by the ordinary orgasm with morbid discharges, in which, in most cases, there is no orgasm whatever. Dr. Cullen, however, has continued to assign the same place Cullen. and the same name to the present species, and this with

and by

GEN. V. SPEC. III. Paroniria salax. Night-polJution.

Physiology.

Ideas of dreaming more lively than in wakefulness, and

why.

Interesting exemplification.

still greater inconsistency; since he has struck out of his definition of gonorrhoea the epithet seminiformis, and confined it to a "fluxus humoris ex urethrâ præter naturam". So that he has been obliged to break his own bounds to introduce this natural flux into the place he has allotted it. And hence in his laying down the treatment of gonorrhoea in his Practice of Physic, he takes no notice of his gonorrhoea dormientium, as though feeling that it was altogether a different subject.

We have already observed that whatever part of the animal frame is immediately connected with the tenour of the somnolent vision, it is often roused, under particular circumstances, from the general sleep or torpitude in which it had participated, and becomes wakeful while every other part perseveres in the common repose. During sleep, moreover, our ideas are often more lively and operative than during wakefulness, and this on two accounts; first, because from the uninterrupted activity of the involuntary organs there is a more ready secretion of sensorial, as well as of most other fluids, in a state of perfect tranquillity; and next, because the ideas that predominate at the time are not broken in upon or weakened by exterior impressions and disturbances. It is, on this account, when the faculty of the judgement is stimulated into activity, instead of the ear or eye or the motory powers, a man has sometimes been able to solve difficulties in dreaming which proved too hard for him when vigilant. And to this effect Dr. Spurzheim: " somnambulists", says he, "even do things of which they are not capable in a state of watching; and some dreaming persons reason sometimes better than they do when awake*. A singular and amusing instance of this occurred not many years ago to a very excellent and justly celebrated friend of the author's, the Reverend William Jones of Nayland, Suffolk, who, among other branches of science, had deeply cultivated that of music, to which indeed he was passionately attached. He was a man of an irritable temperament, ardent

Physiognomical System, p. 175. 8vo. Lond. 1815.

GEN. V. SPEC. III.

Paroniria salax.

Night pol

mind, and most active and brilliant imagination: and was hence prepared by nature for energetic and vivid ideas in his dreams. On one occasion during his sleep, he composed a very beautiful little ode of about six stanzas, and lution. set the same to very agreeable music: the impression of which was so firmly fixed in his memory, that on rising in the morning he set down and copied from his recollection, both the music and the poetry.

gasm from

It is hence not difficult to conceive that members so Hence irritable as the sexual organs, when once the imagination sexual orleads energetically to the subject of concupiscence, should dreaming occasionally participate in the vision, and prove their ideas, sympathy by the result.

In some morbid states of the body, and especially when accompanied with local irritation, produced by inflammation, fibrous entony, the debility of old age, or a habit of vicious indulgence, a seminal flux has sometimes taken place without any connexion with the dream, and sometimes without either erection or turgescence; but this does not constitute the affection immediately before us; in which the stimulant power lies in the sensory and is propagated from that organ to those of generation.

Seminal times dur

flux some

ing sleep

from various causes,

but this

does not balong to the present

species.

The fact known to

the Greeks

and Ro

mans, and

by Lucre

The Roman poet who so admirably unlocked the NATURE OF THINGS to his contemporaries, by following the footsteps of nature herself into most of her deepest recesses, directed his attention to this subject, among other physiological facts, and has elegantly explained it in the elegantly above manner; adducing, at the same time, another in- explained stance of the influence which the ideas of dreaming some- tius. times exercise over the organs connected with them, derived from the evacuation of the bladder which frequently takes place in children whose dream is directed to this natural want, and who image to themselves the ordinary vessel employed for such purpose, as at hand for their use:

Purei sæpe, lacum propter seu dolia curta,
Somno devinctei, credunt se extollere vestem;
Totius humorem saccatum corporis fundunt;
Quom Babylonica, magnifico splendore, rigantur.
Tum, quibus ætatis freta primitus insinuantur,
Semen ubi ipsa dies membris matura creavit,

with an

other effect

of a similar

kind.

GEN. V.

SPEC. III. Paroniria salax.

Night pol lution.

Medical

treatment. General principles to be at

Conveniunt simulacra foris e corpore quoque,
Nuntiæ præclari voltûs, pulchrique coloris,
Qui ciet inritans loca turgida semine multo,

Ut, quasi transactis sæpe omnibus rebus, profundant,
Fluminis ingenteis fluctus, vestemque cruentent*.

In the medical treatment of all these species of paroniria we must never lose sight of this principle that, although in many instances their predisponent cause is a peculiar idiosyncrasy or habit, their exciting cause is, in all cases, general or local irritation; and that this irritathe exciting tion is of two very opposite kinds, which it also becomes us very particularly to attend to, namely, that of entony or excess of power, and that of atony or deficiency.

tended to. Irritation,

cause:

which may be entonic or atonic. Remedial process

when from

tation.

atonic irritation.

It is to the former that Lucretius alludes, and which is by far the most common exciting cause: and where this entonic irri- exists, our first indication is to reduce the superabundant vigour by venesection, purgatives, laborious exercise, and a limitation to a plain and spare diet. While, on the When from contrary, where the exciting cause is debility, our attention should be directed to a tonic course of medicines, and particularly to those tonics which prove sedative at the same time that they strengthen the system. Several of the mineral acids are entitled to this character, and especially the sulphuric: and a still greater number of the vegetable bitters, and particularly the extracts of hop and lettuce. Dr. Cullen, indeed, as we have already observed, supposes a sedative power to exist in all the bitters, though not equally in all. How far the Prussic acid might be employed for this purpose I cannot say from personal practice: but if it really consist, as it is supposed to do, of the sedative principle of the laurocerasus or bitter almonds, it may possibly prove a very scrviceable remedy.

Undue aecumulation of power to be prevented.

Hence hard mattrass :

Our next object of attention should be to prevent all undue accumulation of the sensorial principle during sleep, and this may be accomplished in two very distinct and opposite ways. The first is the use of a hard mattrass, with so small a covering of clothing that the sleep

De Rer. Nat. iv. 1020.

SPEC. III.

Night-pol

may be somewhat less sound than ordinary, and conse- GEN. V. quently more easily broken off. For the force of our Paroniria dreaming ideas will always be in proportion to a certain salax. degree of soundness in our sleep: I say a certain degree, lution. because if the fatigue or exhaustion, or torpitude, be ex- Treatment. treme, the sleep will become profound or lethargic, all the faculties of the mind will participate in it, and, as already observed, there will be no ideas or dreaming whatever.

cotics.

And hence the second mode of preventing an accu- and narmulation of sensorial, and especially of irritable power, will be the employment of narcotics till the morbid habit is destroyed; for these, when carried to a sufficient extent, diminish vascular action, and consequently take off sense and motion so completely as to extinguish the vital principle altogether, and hence not only to suppress all power of dreaming, but even life itself.

I had lately under my care for the last species, a very Illustration. modest and regular young man, who was a student of Christ's College, Cambridge, and was alarmed at the idea of having his constitution undermined by its continuance. He was rapidly growing, of slender make, and of a relaxed habit. Nitre, which has been so often recommended as a sedative, in this case did no service: but under the use of a pill composed of one grain of opium and five of camphor taken nightly, and draughts of myrrh, and infusion of columbo acidulated with sulphuric acid, he lost the tendency in a fortnight, after having been subject to the discharge for many weeks. His bowels were kept at the same time constantly stimulated by the pill of aloes and myrrh: and the cold-bath formed a part of his regimen. Pagani and De Cazelles* have recommended electricity; but the author has never tried its effects, having uniformly succeeded without it.

Where a

secondary

Where either of these species, but particularly the two former, are connected with a morbid state of the stomach, affection, the prithe disease must be attacked in this quarter, as it was with great judgement and a favourable issue in the case ease must quoted from Dr. Yeates.

mary dis

be principally at

tended to.

Journ. de Médicine, Tom. LXXIV.

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