sleep then and now - 1805-2005

• Major social changes throughout the period make 'then and now' comparisons difficult. Sleep before the industrial revolution may, in many cultures, have consisted of two parts during the night with a substantial period of wakefulness in between. (Ekirch, 2005). The combination of Saints days, and lack of rotas, shift-work, street lighting, and many other factors lead to various sleep patterns. For example, Birmingham artisans would work several days, then rest and play for several days (depending on their workload and Saint Days) - a siesta pattern was also adopted. Lice, bedbugs and fleas *(in the bed), climate change, fire and heating, epidemics, average age of death, medications, diet, etc, etc all had an impact on the general characteristics of sleep which makes population and historical comparisons near impossible.
• Sleep was thought to compose of at least three types: light, deep and dreaming, and their explanation depended on current medical, philosophical or spiritual models.
• Treatment of poor sleep varied but depended on existing medical and health models.
• Over the period 1805-2005, the last fifty years shows a huge surge in interest in sleep, both in terms of basic mechanisms and treatment. The discovery by Aserinsky and Kleitman that rapid eye movements were associated with dreaming probably provided the catalyst.
• The Royal Society of Medicine showed its interest in the area by agreeing to set up the Sleep and its disorders forum, which is now the Sleep Medicine Section. The forum and section have been holding 2-4 meetings a year since 1999. Other sections that have been involved with 'sleep' are psychiatry and neurology (More information on the RSM, Sleep and its disorders forum ) and the section.

As part of the bicentenary celebrations of the Royal Society of Medicine the Sleep Medicine Section designated its Sleep and Genetics meeting (22 April 2005) as commemorating the event. At this meeting one presentation examined sleep over the period of the RSM's existence 1805-2005. This website provides supplementary material supporting the presentation as well as slightly more interactive elements such as as wiki.

The areas investigated have been:

• Entries from journals, time-sheets, evidence of working, prayer, social hours, etc. Sailor's watches; Army's watches. How had these evolved.
• Holidays; evidence of siestas (Birmingham).;
• Nighttime activities; evidence of early night and late night sleeps.
• How people slept? Class differences.
• Scientific and other artefacts - EEG machines, watches, alarm clocks?
• Clinical artefacts - anti-snoring devices; pharmaceuticals
• Etc, etc

• Historical Context
• Brief history of the RSM
• Society, science and sleep
• RSM - the first sleep society?
• Sleep wiki

A Wiki is a web site that can be edited directly by anyone browsing it. That way new content can be added, errors or inaccuracies corrected, and their own comments added. "http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2004/11/04/which_wiki.html" review

The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) evolved from numerous London-based medical societies. It's founding arose when many members of the Medical Society of London abandoned this organisation to form the Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1805. The Medical Society of London had originally formed in 1773 to share experiences and promote the then three primary divisions of medicine: physicians, surgeons and apothecaries.

From 1805 many other medical societies formed as well as the Medical and Chirurgical Society and these were amalgamated in 1907 to form the Royal Society of Medicine.

• Society of Anaesthetists, 1893-1908
• British Balneological and Climatology Society, 1895-1909
• Clinical Society of London, 1868-1907
• Dermatological Society of London, 1882-1907
• Dermatological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1894-1907
• Society for the Study of Diseases in Children, 1900-1908
• British Electrotherapeutic Society, 1901-1907
• Epidemiological Society of London, 1850-1907
• British Gynaecological Society, 1884-1907
• British Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Association, 1888-1907
• Laryngological Society of London, 1893-1907
• Neurological Society, 1886-1907
• Obstetrical Society of London, 1858-1907
• Odontological Society of Great Britain, 1856-1907
• Pathological Society of London, 1846-1907
• Therapeutical Society, 1902-1907

• Accident and Emergency Medicine 1987
• Anaesthesia 1908
• Balneological and Climatological 1909-1931
• Cardiothoracic 1991
• Clinicalb1907
• Clinical Forensic & Legal Medicine 1988
• Clinical Immunology and Allergy 1965
• Clinical Neurosciences (formerly Neurology) 1997
• Coloproctology (formerly Proctology 1913-1983) 1913
• Comparative Medicine 1923
• Dermatology 1907
• Electro-Therapeutics (see also Radiology & Physical Medicine) 1907-1931
• Endocrinology 1946
• Epidemiology & Public Health
• (Epidemiology 1907-1913; Epidemiology & State Medicine 1913 - 1952; Epidemiology & Preventative Medicine 1952-1974; Epidemiology & Community Medicine 1974-1990) 1907
• Experimental Medicine & Therapeutics (see Therapeutics & Pharmacology 1907-1943 - joined Medicine to form Medicine, Experimental Medicine & Therapeutics 1973-1987) 1943-1973
• General Practice with Primary Health Care (formerly known as General Practice 1950-2003) 1950
• Geriatrics & Gerontology 1991
• History of Medicine 1912
• Hypnosis & Psychosomatic Medicine (preciously Mental & Dental Hypnosis 1978-1987) 1988
• Larynology & Rhinology (formerly section of Larynology 1907-1993) 1907
• Library (Scientific Research) (became Pharmaceutical Medicine & Research) 1956-1994
• Measurement in Medicine 1963-2000
• Medicine (became Medicine, Experimental Medicine & Therapeutics until abolished in 1987) 1907-1973
• Medical Education 1966-1982
• Medicine, Experimental Medicine & Therapeutics (see also Medicine Section & Therapeutics and Pharmacological section) 1973-1987
• Nephrology 1994
• Neurology (became Clinical Neurosciences 1977) 1907-1997
• Obstetrics and Gynaecology 1907
• Occupational Medicine 1964
• Odontology 1907
• Oncology 1970
• Open 1974
• Ophthalmology 1912
• Orthopaedics 1913
• Otology-incl. Otosclerosis Committee 1907
• Paediatrics and Child Health (previously known as Study of Disease 1908-1946; Paediatrics 1946-1999) 1908
• Pathology 1907
• Pharmaceutical Medicine & Research (previously Library - Scientific Research) 1994
• Plastic Surgery 1967
• Proctology (see Coloproctology) 1913-1983
• Psychiatry 1912
• Radiology 1931
• Respiratory Medicine 1991
• Rheumatology & Rehabilitation 1931
• Sports Medicine 1994
• Surgery 1907
• Therapeutics & Pharmacology (Experimental Medicine & Therapeutics) 1907-1943
• Transplantation 1994
• Tropical Medicine Section 1912-1936
• United Services (Previously known as War Section 1919-1929) 1929
• Urology Section 1920
• War Section (then United Services) 1919-1929

• Angiology (Became Vascular Medicine Section) 1986-2002
• Black & Ethnic Minority Health 2000
• Catastrophes & Conflict 1999
• Clinical Haemorheology (amalgamated with Angiology 1997) 1982-1997
• Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (amalgamated with Section of Pharmaceutical Medicine & Research) 1987-1997
• Communication in Health Care (formerly Medical Communications) 1986
• Computers in Medicine 1990-1996
• Food & Health 1984
• Learning Disability (formerly Mental Retardation 1983-1993) 1993
• Lipids in Clinical Medicine 1983
• Maternity & the Newborn 1982
• Medical Care of Catastrophes (became Catastrophes & Conflict 1999) 1998-1999
• Medical Communication (became Communication in Healthcare 2000) 1983-2000
• Mental Retardation (became Learning Disability 1993) 1983-1993
• Palliative Care 1996
• Quality in Healthcare 1991
• Sexual Health & Reproductive Medicine (formerly Sexual Medicine & Family Planning) 2000
• Sexual Medicine & Family Planning (became Sexual Health & Reproductive Medicine 2000) 1986-2000
• Sleep & Its Disorders (became Sleep Medicine 2002) 1999-2002
• Telemedicine (became Telemedicine & eHealth 2001) 1997-2001
• Vascular Medicine (formerly Angiology) 2002
• Venous 1983

The history of the society reflects the changing educational and professional demands of medicine, so it may not be too surprising to find the Society's relationship the same as that with medicine. Sleep may be a state that engulfs most people roughly 25-30% of their daily time and has a major effect both on the physiology and psychology of a person but it debatable whether a speciality is required to manage its disorders? The primary catalyst to have accelerated interest in sleep was the discovery that rapid eye movement sleep as defined using an electrophysiological measure corrleated with dreaming - apparently an objective measure of a subjective state. However, right from this beginning the question has always been should sleep research serve all the medical specialities or should sleep medicine be a speciality in its own right? Should sleep apnoea be treated by a sleep specialists or a respiratory physician? Similarly, should fatal familial insomnia be dealt with by a sleep specialist or a neurologist, ... MORE

The Society has always had innovators amongst its midst who considered sleep as important scientific and medical problem. For example in the 's was Adrian (xref), Oswald in the 's - and now many more exist within the section and the steering committee ..

Interested sections

• Experimental Medicine and Therapeutics (formally Therapeutics and Pharmacology) - "The Battle of the Barbiturates"
• Neurology
• Psychiatry "Brainwaves and criminality." Freud and Jung
• History of Medicine
• Hypnosis
• etc ...

Sleep was not recognised as a subject or a speciality by the Royal Society of Medicine until the setting up of the Sleep and its disorders forum (proposed 1997, approved 1998, first meeting 1999 archives). It became the Sleep Medicine Section, in 2001. Both forum and section are cross-speciality and multi-disciplinary acting as focus for up to date, high quality information on sleep and its disorders. Consequently the membership is diverse, whilst the guiding steering committee consists of specialists with a particular interest in sleep.

Kleitman (1939 and 1963) reviews theories of sleep by first considering Piéron's 1913 review. Piéron classified theories into 'complete' which account for the sleep-wakefulness cycle, and 'partial' which account for some aspect of the cycle such as falling asleep (but not necessarily what causes awakening).

• Alcmeon, contemporary of Pythagoras 6thC BC thought sleep was caused by the retreat of blood into the veins.
• Aristotle thought of sleep as a by product of nutrition.
• Circulatory
• Neural inhibition

• Ralph et al. show that the transplanted SCN determines circadian period (1990)
• Vitaterna et al. identify the first circadian mutation, Clock, in the mouse (1994).
• Autonomous single-cell circadian oscillators are reported by Welsh et al.(1995)
• An independent circadian clock is found in the mammalian retina by Tosini and Menaker (1996)
• Sun et al. and Tei et al. identify the mammalian orthologue of the period gene of Drosophila (1997)
• Giebultowicz and Hege describe an independent circadian clock in the peripheral tissues of Drosophila (1997).
• The expression of clock genes in mammalian peripheral tissues is shown by Zylka et al.13 and Balsalobre et al. (1998)
• Van der Horst et al. show that the lightcapturing proteins of plants have an essential role in the mammalian clock (1999).
• Lowrey et al. localize the tau gene (2000).

EF Buzzard - Presidential address to Psychiatry Section (from Lancet, 1920. Some Aspect of Mental Hygiene.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the invatders of our borderland have unduly minimised the importance of rest as a physiological essential in the prevention and cure of psychoneuroses. Rest and sleep, must to the end of the chapter, be necessary in treating a condition of exhaustion, however the latter is produced. It is contended that with simple fatigue, uncomplicated by an anxiety state, sleep is undisturbed and refreshing. But it must be remembered that fatigue of itself may convert potential anxieties into active anxieties by reason of that loss of sense of perspective and of proportion by which it is almost invariably accompanied. In this way insomnia and disturbed sleep are brought about and a vicious circle established. This is a matter of everyday experience, and one which must not be lost sight of in any system of mental hygiene."

INCIDENTAL NOTE - The Aftermath of Eye-Strain, S Stephenson - Lancet, 1910: "The late Mr Simposon Snell spoke of insomnia as a frequent manifestation of eye-strain and commented upon the fact that natural sleep speedily returned when relief had been afforded over-taxed eyes by correcting glasses.