It has never been my fortune to witness a case of protracted sleep. Regarding the starting-point of the disorder as being situated in the sympathetic system, I should be disposed to employ the direct galvanic current in the treatment--placing the positive pole over the sympathetic nerve in the neck, and the negative over the opposite scapula. This I would do, using a battery of thirty-two or a less number of pairs, every day, for from five to ten minutes. CHAPTER XII. SOMNOLENTIA, OR SLEEP DRUNKENNESS. By somnolentia, or sleep drunkenness, is understood a condition in which some of the mental faculties and senses are fully aroused, others partially so, while others remain as they are in profound sleep. It is therefore an imperfect sleep, or rather a combination of wakefulness and sleep. The phenomena peculiar to it are frequently met with in children, in whom they may be excited through the influence of a dream, but which at other times have no such origin. The condition in question is only induced by the sudden waking of a person. A very excellent account of sleep drunkenness, in its medico-legal relations, is given by Wharton and Stillé,[148] who have quoted several interesting cases from German and other authors, which I do not hesitate to transfer to these pages. “A sentry fell asleep during his watch, and, being suddenly aroused by the officer in command, attacked the latter with his sword, and would have killed him but for the interposition of the by-standers. The result of the medical examination was, that the act was involuntary and irresponsible, being the result of a violent confusion of mind consequent upon the sudden waking from a profound sleep. “A day-laborer killed his wife with a wagon-tire, the blow being struck immediately on his starting up from a deep sleep from which he was forcibly awakened. In this case there was collateral evidence that the defendant was seized, on awaking, with a delusion that a ‘woman in white’ had snatched his wife from his side and was carrying her away, and that his agony of mind was so great that his whole body was bathed in perspiration.