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An English Translation of John William Polidori’s (1815) Medical Dissertation on Oneirodynia (Somnambulism)

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10509585.2010.514504

1740-4657

David Petrain,

Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

Abstract John William Polidori (1795–1821), personal physician to Lord Byron and author of The Vampyre (1819), completed in 1815 his inaugural medical dissertation on the subject of oneirodynia, a term encompassing both somnambulism and other trance‐like states that occur during sleep. The dissertation offers two case studies of sleepwalkers and discusses theories about the mind and its activities during sleep, themes that are prominent in Polidori's fiction. Because this document is difficult to access and written in Latin, it has received minimal attention from literary critics and none from historians of medicine. This article presents here for the use of future researchers the first published English translation of the entirety of Polidori's treatise, accompanied by explanatory notes. Notes 1. Italo‐Anglus. 2. Polidori (hereafter P.) uses English for the quotation from Macbeth. 3. "Soul" translates animus here and throughout. 4. omnes … actiones tam obscurae sunt, ut nunquam primas cognoscere causas rerum, nos futuros esse, videtur. Classical usage would require a subjunctive in the ut clause, videatur. P. apparently renders the English "we are going to learn" literally with the future of the Latin verb "to be" followed by an infinitive (cognoscere … nos futuros esse); Latin would normally use a simple future infinitive here (nos cognituros esse). This is a first example of how English idiom influences P.'s Latin, and of how the Latin syntax can become tangled when he is expressing complex ideas. 5. "Mind" translates mens. 6. P. does not place diacritical marks on the Greek words that he cites. This was a common practice for Greek texts printed in England during the eighteenth century (Allen 152–53). 7. This paragraph adapts closely the first paragraph of the entry "Somnambule & Somnambulisme" from Diderot's Encyclopédie (see Introduction), to the extent that P. has taken over its Latin etymology of somnambulisme ("formé de deux mots latins, somnus, sommeil, & ambulo, je me promene," 15: 340b) and attempted to reproduce it for the Greek term. P.'s derivation is incorrect and was attacked during the examination of his dissertation (Macdonald 42). In fact oneirodynia belongs to a class of words formed with the suffix‐odynia from Gk. odunē, "pain." Cullen accordingly emphasized the connection with pain or discomfort in his definition of oneirodynia as "inflamed or disturbed imagination during sleep" (qtd. in the Oxford English Dictionary [OED], s.v. "oneiro‐, comb. form"); P.'s deviant derivation highlights instead the motor aspects of the disease (though Gk. dunō means "enter" rather than "walk"). 8. This sentence offers an oblique criticism of those who divide cases of oneirodynia into a discrete number of subtypes. P. will go on to criticize two such classificatory schemes below, and he will not himself offer a subdivision; his rejection of formal subtypes is in keeping with his insistence on the superiority of experience and observation over theoretical systems. 9. somno excitabili. 10. Culleni ipsa claudicat definitio. 11. "Plethoric" refers to any disorder characterized by excess of fluids. "Ephialtes" was a term used by some medical writers to denote a nightmare or incubus that sat on a patient's chest (compare OED s.v. "Ephialtes"). 12. For this and the next paragraph, compare the second paragraph from the Encyclopédie entry. 13. scopletum, probably a variant or misprint of sclopetum, "pistol." 14. "Episode" translates paroxysmus. 15. cursus. 16. I.e. while experiencing an episode the sufferer can remember what he did during other episodes, but after waking up he can no longer remember what happened during any episode. The Encyclopédie makes the same observation but without P.'s metaphor: "il semble qu'ils aient deux mémoires, l'une pour la veille, & l'autre pour le sommeil" (15: 340b). 17. conjecturas et subtilitates. 18. ob levem, tum recentiorum [observationum], tum veterum scrutationem. 19. ob naturae moram. 20. tegumentorum copia. 21. decubitus supinus. 22. Compare Encyclopédie 15: 340b for similar points about the difficulty of finding trustworthy sources. 23. difficiliora, literally "rather difficult." 24. Credat haec Judaeus Apella. An approximate quotation from Horace's Satires (book 1, poem 5, line 100, the famous trip to Brundisium), the full phrase is credat Iudaeus Apella, non ego: "let Apella the Jew believe that; I certainly will not." The line is a proverbial expression of skepticism in the face of a story that strains credulity; it relies on the ancient Roman prejudice that the Jews – here represented by an otherwise unknown Apella – were superstitious and prone to believing in miracles. P. has adjusted the quotation by supplying the direct object (haec, "these things") that Horace had left to be inferred from the context. 25. de oneirodynia convulsiva furente. 26. anthelmiticis remediis. 27. Also known as "Jesuits' Bark," the bark of the Cinchona tree from Peru is the source of quinine and was used to prevent fever as well as to disrupt the course of diseases that reappear periodically (compare OED s.v. "bark, n. 1" 7). 28. quae circa timorem Gallorum aggredentium [sic], prout ejus phantasia sibi eos representabat, versabatur. 29. in scenam reducebant. 30. Here Aloysius switches into the present tense and the narrative becomes more vivid. 31. quae ex conamento super eum pendebant. 32. tange dum. Aloysius employs colloquial Latin in order to render the boy's speech. 33. famulam. 34. cocholatae (sic). 35. chinae‐chinae (also spelled kinkinnae), another term for Peruvian Bark (compare OED s.v. "quinquina"). 36. Pape ardet domus! 37. venustum puerum. 38. Res sane prodigiosa. 39. "Hyperexcitability" translates irritabilitas. 40. The Encyclopédie entry reaches a similar conclusion (15: 342a). 41. imaginationis et memoriae impressiones. 42. aliqua quaque animi alienatione. 43. mechanica quaque consuetudine. 44. Et eum famulum attingere non potuisse, nullo modo visionem non habuisse argumentum erit, si in memoria habebimus ei tactu opus fuisse ad matrem inveniendam, nam inde apparet eum visu usum esse, sed intervallum aestimare, nisi tactu nequisse, et ea de causa visionem corripiebat, quod non in casu famuli facientem, ea de re tantum accidisse videtur quod erat deceptus. The sentence is awkward and obscure, another instance of how P.'s syntax becomes tangled when expressing complex ideas. 45. aliquam ideam. 46. Compare Encyclopédie 15: 341b: "le somnambule ne voit alors que les objets dont il a besoin, que ceux qui sont présens à son imagination." 47. natura prona. 48. Adapted from Encyclopédie 15: 340b–41b. 49. From P.'s introductory sentence, it is unclear who is entering whose room because Latin syntax requires both the subject and the object of a verb in indirect discourse (here, "saw") to be in the same grammatical case, so that the expression referring to entering the bedroom could apply equally well to either man (the Encyclopédie makes it clear that the Archbishop went into the priest's room); P. also omitted the obligatory pronoun se, which would clarify that the Archbishop is the subject of "saw." P. evidently lost control of a sentence containing so much exposition: Archiepiscopus Burdigalensis cum in collegio esset, quemdam sacerdotem oneirodynia laborantem, (et ut curiosus erat cognoscere hujus morbi effectus,) saepe nocte in ejus cubiculum introeuntem, et haec at alia facientem vidisse narrat. 50. In the Encyclopédie, it is the author of the entry who vouches for this observation, not the Archbishop ("J'ai vu le commencement d'un des sermons, … il m'a paru assez bien fait …" 15: 341a). 51. Once again, the author of the Encyclopédie entry vouches for the following observations himself, having viewed papers sent to him by the Archbishop (15: 341a). 52. Compare OED s.v. "minim, n.1". 53. I.e., "the covers," which stand in for the body of the boy in the priest's dream. 54. sed saepe in paroxysmo quaeri [for queri] audiebatur ab amicis, quod eum scribere, loqui et alia dormientem facere accusarent, cum tam alto somno involutus esset. 55. hoc forsitan cum chartae commutarentur per tactum accidit. I.e. his sense of touch alerted him to the fact that the papers were being switched, and this activated his visual faculties? 56. ratio symptomatum. 57. cogitatio. 58. memoriam tantum et idearum connexionem persequitur. 59. The Encyclopédie had claimed that the somnambulist does not have use of his senses, and that his activities call into question common ideas about sleep (15: 342a). P. responds with his definition and its elaboration in the next paragraph, which asserts commonalities between oneirodynia, sleep, and other common mental processes. The argumentation in this section is his own. 60. aliae majori sunt insensibilitate involutae. 61. sensationem non excitent. 62. nisi a fortiori in mentem impulsu. 63. affectio mentis. 64. egimus, a misprint for egemus. 65. somnambulos. P. uses this word for the first time here, perhaps because it is the term found in the Encyclopédie (somnambule) and P. is currently intent on refuting that source's arguments. 66. Forsitan, oneirodynia laborantes, in ea quae cum altero praecedente paroxysmo connexionem habent incidunt, iterum ingrediuntur, ut ita dicam in cursum idearum in somno habitas. A good example of P.'s syntax gone awry: the sentence is missing a subordinating conjunction (cum or some such before in ea); habitas should be habitarum. 67. idem phenomenon. 68. That is, the author of the Encyclopédie entry, who had argued that sleepwalkers receive impressions of objects without the use of their senses, and that their ability to experience sensations that have no external cause (like the priest's feeling of cold) casts doubt on the validity of using sense impressions to prove the existence of external objects (15: 342a). 69. The Encyclopédie cites the same postulate, in Latin. 70. a pluribus. P.'s source continues to multiply. 71. Compare the end of the Encyclopédie entry (15: 342b). 72. The Encyclopédie names Descartes as well as Aristotle. 73. The Encyclopédie describes a rather different use for the frigid baths (15: 342b): "on pourroit seconder ces effets [of other remedies] par les bains froids, … pour calmer la mobilité du système nerveux."