Chapter III: Part 3

By steadily persisting in the plan above laid down, I have succeeded in bringing this monster under some kind of control, so as to be able to commit myself to the arms of sleep with a degree of confidence unknown to me for years before; and if in consequence of irregularity, fatigue or ill health, I am occasionally visited by this fiend of darkness, I fly with equal confidence to the antidote, which fails to chase him from my couch.

What has been said with respect to the treatment of Night-Mare, will apply equally to the other kinds of disturbed sleep which I have noticed in this work. They originate from the same cause, and will be removed by the same remedies. In children, frightful dreams frequently result from worms, and consequently will be remedied by any kind of treatment which removes the worms themselves, and with them the trash which forms their nest. This trash of itself frequently exists without the worms, and produces all the symptoms which they occasion, and amongst others, Night-Mare and disturbed sleep. By the treatment above recommended it will be evacuated, and its further formation prevented.

If any unfortunate sufferer from this distressing complaint shall obtain relief by the method here laid down, the end of writing this little Treatise will be fully answered, which is to restore the blessings of repose to those who are deprived of it by this hideous fiend.

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The learned Theophilus Bonetus observes, that this disease was unknown to Hippocrates and Galen.--Vide _Polyath. Lib. ii. Cap. xxviii. De Incubo et Catalepsi_. Unknown it could not be to such observers of nature, although they may not have written upon it. In the book however, ascribed to Galen, entitled “De Utilitate Respirationis,” the following short, but comprehensive notice, is to be found concerning it.--_Et Ephialtes quædam Epilepsia, quæ fit in somno: fit autem ex mistione tanquam Epilepsia. Ideoque non in vigilante, sed in dormiente: ut enim, prædictum est somnus et epilepsia fiunt in eodem loco, et ex simili causâ: unde Aristoteles dicit epilepsiam esse somnum quendam: verum ephialtes longo tempore perdurans in Epilepsiam convertitur._

[2] Memorat denique Silimachus Hippocratis sectator, contagione quâdam, plurimos ex istâ passione, (i. e. Incubo) velut lue, apud Urbem Romam confectos.--_Cœl. Aurel. lib. i. cap. iii._ de Incubone.

[3] _Forrestus incubo affectus putabat, pectus suum comprimi a cane nigro, unde respirare non potuit, utut fæmina videret esse somnium fallax, uti de se refert._--L. 10. Obs. 51.