The long sleep

[NoahBriggs]

Here is a question for the medical masses.

Wonder how the Original Cast dealt with comas?

No, I have not researched the topic - yet. Not sure if I should even use the word "coma" as a key word. I'm curious if anyone has come across any references to comas or "long sleeps" or someone going into a long sleep/coma before they die. Or, if someone went into a coma but came out of it.

I'm sure this topic is more complicated from a technical stand point, but hey, this is what occurs to me on the commuter bus in the morning. Maybe I had expired caffeine this morning?

Thoughts? And please document your responses. Thanks!

[hanktrent]

Off the top of my head, the thing that occurs to me is that "coma" didn't mean what we think it means, back then.

Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1851: "Coma is a deeper sleep than sopor, but less so than lethargy and carus."

"Carus... the last degree of coma, with complete insensibility, which no stimulus can remove, even for a few instants. Sopor, Coma, Lethargia, and Carus are four degrees of the same condition."

So there's a word to search for, when looking for treatments.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[plankmaker]

If I remember correctly, this surgeon mentions cases where someone awakens from a long coma-like sleep in a couple of letters. He also discusses some strange wounds that he was amazed soldiers survived:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Co5...ne&lr=#PPA8,M1

Mark Campbell
Piney Flats, TN

[NoahBriggs]

Thank you fellows!

I totally forgot about the Duglinson's Lexicon.

Thanks for the google citation, too.