SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS. By H. Addington Bruce. Little,
Brown & Co. Boston, 1915. Pp VII, 219.
This book constitutes the third volume of the "Mind and
Health" Series. In it the author has given an admirable and
clear summary of the recent psycho-pathological work on sleep
and sleeplessness. He begins by a discussion of the nature of
sleep and considering the difficulties involved in making such a
discussion clear to the average reader, the author has done remarkably
well in summarizing the technical work along this line.
He then passes to the problem of dreams and the part played by
the unconscious mechanism involved in dreaming, laying particular
and justifiable stress upon the point, that when problems are
solved or adjusted in dreams, they have always been previously
solved by a kind of unconscious incubation during the waking
moments. The chapters on the disorders of sleep and the causes
of sleeplessness are brief but comprehensive, while in the discussion
of sleeplessness important stress is laid on the mental elements
involved in every case of insomnia. A strong plea is made for the
psycho-therapeutic rather than the pharmacologica, treatment of
the disorders of sleep. On the whole the book is clearly written
and can be recommended to those who wish a brief and at the
same time comprehensive account of the modern theories of sleep
and its disorders.
ISADOR H. CORIAT.
