DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0287
EXTRAORDINARY SLEEPER.
255
till about the month of April, 1696, when he fell into his
sleeping fit again as he bad done before. After some
days his friends were prevailed on to try what effect medi-
cines might have upon him : accordingly one Mr.
Gibbs, an apothecary bled, blistered, cupped, and scari-
fied him, and used all the external irritating medicines
he could think of; but all was to no purpose ; and after
the first fortnight he was never observed to open his eyes.
Victuals stood by him as before, which he ate of now
and then, but nobody ever saw him eat or evacuate, though
he did both very regularly as he had occasion, and some-
times they found him fast asleep with the pot in his hand
in bed, and sometimes with his mouth full of meat. In
this manner he lay about ten weeks, and then he could
eat nothing ; for his jaws seemed,to be set and his teeth
clenched so close, that wdth all the art they used with in-
struments, they could not open his mouth to put any
thing into it to support him. At last observing a hole
made in his teeth by holding his pipe in his mouth, they
now and then poured some tent into his mouth through
a quill, and this was all he took for six weeks and four
days, and of that not above three pints or two quarts; he
had made water but once, and never had a stool all that
time. On the 7th of August, which is seventeen weeks
from the 9th of April, when he began to sleep, he awoke,
put on his clothes, and walked about the room : not
knowing he had slept above a night, nor could he be per-
suaded he had lain so long, till going out into the fields
he found every body busy getting in the harvest, and
be remembered very well when he fell asleep, that they
were sowing their barley and oats, which he then saw
ripe and fit to be cut down. There was one thing obser-
vable that though his flesh was wasted with lying so long
in bed, fasting for above six weeks, yet a certain gentle-
man assured Dr. Oliver that when he saw him, which
was
255
till about the month of April, 1696, when he fell into his
sleeping fit again as he bad done before. After some
days his friends were prevailed on to try what effect medi-
cines might have upon him : accordingly one Mr.
Gibbs, an apothecary bled, blistered, cupped, and scari-
fied him, and used all the external irritating medicines
he could think of; but all was to no purpose ; and after
the first fortnight he was never observed to open his eyes.
Victuals stood by him as before, which he ate of now
and then, but nobody ever saw him eat or evacuate, though
he did both very regularly as he had occasion, and some-
times they found him fast asleep with the pot in his hand
in bed, and sometimes with his mouth full of meat. In
this manner he lay about ten weeks, and then he could
eat nothing ; for his jaws seemed,to be set and his teeth
clenched so close, that wdth all the art they used with in-
struments, they could not open his mouth to put any
thing into it to support him. At last observing a hole
made in his teeth by holding his pipe in his mouth, they
now and then poured some tent into his mouth through
a quill, and this was all he took for six weeks and four
days, and of that not above three pints or two quarts; he
had made water but once, and never had a stool all that
time. On the 7th of August, which is seventeen weeks
from the 9th of April, when he began to sleep, he awoke,
put on his clothes, and walked about the room : not
knowing he had slept above a night, nor could he be per-
suaded he had lain so long, till going out into the fields
he found every body busy getting in the harvest, and
be remembered very well when he fell asleep, that they
were sowing their barley and oats, which he then saw
ripe and fit to be cut down. There was one thing obser-
vable that though his flesh was wasted with lying so long
in bed, fasting for above six weeks, yet a certain gentle-
man assured Dr. Oliver that when he saw him, which
was