Paper, ‘A relatione of a strange sleeper’ by William Oliver

Description

Oliver discusses the case of a healthy 25-year-old man who spontaneously fell into a great sleep for a month and then awoke and carried on his life as normal, but did not speak until a month after waking up. Two year later, he again fell into a heavily sleepy period. Oliver and others made experiments on the man during his sleeping spells, attempting to wake him up with spirit of sal armoniac [salammoniac], sticking a pin in his arm, and stopping his nose and mouth.

Subject: Medicine

Published in Philosophical Transactions as ‘A relation of an extraordinary sleepy person, at Tinsbury, near Bath’.

Addressed to Richd [Richard] Waller in Crosbey Square Bishop gate Street [Crosby Square, Bishopsgate, London].

Reference number

CLP/14i/45

Earliest possible date

1690s

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

9 pages

Format

Manuscript