{"product_id":"2940148921240","title":"Insomnia; and Other Disorders of Sleep (Illustrated)","description":"The regularly recurring incidence of natural sleep forms one of the most important subjects for physiological investigation. Were it an event of rare occurrence, it would excite a degree of astonishment and alarm equal to the agitation now experienced by the spectator of an ordinary attack of syncope or of epileptic convulsion. But, so completely does the recurrence of sleep harmonize with all the other facts of life that we are as indifferent to its nature as we are to every other healthy function of the body. It is only when the mind has undertaken a critical observation of the bodily and mental changes which accompany and condition the phenomenon that we begin to comprehend its wonderful character. Ushered in by a waning activity of body and mind that no effort of the will can long resist, nothing could more forcibly suggest the idea of approaching dissolution if, from the very earliest period of unconscious infancy, we had not been accustomed to the dominion of this imperious necessity. The remarkable likeness between the fading of consciousness in sleep and its extinction[Pg iv] in death has, in all ages and among all people, arrested the attention of poets and philosophers of every degree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoft repose,\u003cbr\u003eA living semblance of the grave,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003esang old Thomas Miller; and, describing, in Milton’s stately verse, the close of his first day in the garden of Eden, Adam says:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGentle sleep\u003cbr\u003eFirst found me, and with soft oppression seized\u003cbr\u003eMy drowsy sense, untroubled, though I thought\u003cbr\u003eI then was passing to my former state\u003cbr\u003eInsensible, and forthwith to dissolve.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow wonderful is death,\u003cbr\u003eDeath and his brother, Sleep!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eexclaims Shelley, echoing the marvellous strains that have come down to us from the days of Homer and Hesiod. In that venerable literature Sleep and Death are represented as twin brothers, sons of Night; dwelling in the lower world of spirits, whence they come forth to perform the will of the Olympian Gods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe prosaic genius of our scientific generation no longer tolerates such lively exercise of the imagination. The splendid anthropomorphism of the Hebrew poet, looking out upon the silent night, and cheering his soul with the sonorous exclamation,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBehold, he that keepeth Israel\u003cbr\u003eShall neither slumber nor sleep\u003cbr\u003e·····\u003cbr\u003eFor so he giveth his beloved sleep,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehas become a mere memory of childhood. Wordsworth[Pg v] understood the full significance of this change when he wrote:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,\u003cbr\u003eThe earth, and every common sight,\u003cbr\u003eTo me did seem\u003cbr\u003eApparelled in celestial light,\u003cbr\u003eThe glory and the freshness of a dream.\u003cbr\u003eIt is not now as it has been of yore;\u003cbr\u003eTurn whereso’er I may,\u003cbr\u003eBy night or day,\u003cbr\u003eThe things which I have seen I now can see no more!\u003cbr\u003e... I know, where’er I go,\u003cbr\u003eThat there has passed away a glory from the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf, however, despite the loss of much that was beautiful and attractive in the myths of antiquity, we take advantage of the\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYears that bring the philosophic mind,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe shall surely find in the scientific investigation of sleep enough to awaken “thoughts too deep for” words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Pg vi]\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Lost Leaf Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47084459688176,"sku":"2940148921240","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940148921240_p0.jpg?v=1763709821","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940148921240","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}