ABSTRACT
The elements of the sensorium are affected with a species of general torpor which causes their vital energies to sink below their normal pitch, and they accordingly exhibit that general condition of diffused languishing of the mental forces, in which the processes of personality are only manifested in a dull, vague, and diffuse manner. Series of morbid phenomena in which the notion of personality, and consciousness of the external world may be suddenly suspended by the effect of a momentary arrest of the circulation in the plexuses of the sensorium. The cerebral cell, in fact, like the peripheral cell, becomes fatigued at the end of a certain period of activity; its sensibility becomes more or less rapidly dulled. It is fatigued, and perforce falls into a state of collapse, which is nothing but physiological sleep. Under contrary conditions, when the plexuses of sensorium no longer receive a sufficient quantity of blood, as regards their assimilative properties, inverse phenomena are produced.
