Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...VVm. A. Hammond's "Sleep and Sleeplessness," p. 35. Prof. William James most emphatically insisted upon this fact when he wrote ("Principles of Psychology," Vol. I., p. 99): "I need hardly say that the activity of the nervous matter is the primary phenomenon, and the afflux of blood its secondary consequence. Many popular writers talk as if it were the other way about, and as if mental activity were due to the afflux of blood. But, as Prof. H. N. Martin has well said: 'That belief has no physiological foundation whatever; it is even directly opposed to all that we know of cell life.'" Professor Mosso proved this later by direct experiment; see his " Fatigue," p. 195. '"Sleep: Its Physiology, Pathology, Hygiene and Psychology," p. 59.-' gained much general acceptance, it would be hardly worth our while to summarize or criticize them here. In any case, as Wundt pointed out, practically all the theories oTsleepossess the common deiecTm that they neglect its fundamental and direct cause. TThis wuTTSecome more apparent as we proceed. The chemical theory of sleep is refuted by the fact that mere boredom or monotony is sufficient to cause sleep, and so is hypnotic suggestion, though fatigue is not present in any degree. See my discussion under "Fatigue." As the result of considerations such as the above, Dr. M. de Manaceine was driven to reject all the current theories of sleep, M/ and in her own book on the subject, asserts that the only real i 'v V definition we can give of sleep is that "sleep is the resting tune of consciousness."1 This may be--undoubtedly is--very true; but it can hardly be called an explanation in the strict sense of the term. It is merely a statement of a condition--one condition--accompanying sleep. It is no explanation...
