Narcolepsy and hypersomnia: review and classification of 642 personally observed cases

Abstract

In this paper the author gives a survey and a classification of 642 cases of narcolepsy and hypersomnia which he himself studied in the course of 26 years. 368 cases were classified as narcolepsy, 274 as hypersomnia. The author further classifies narcolepsies according to their etiology, clinical form and pathophysiological mechanisms of origin. Hypersomnias are divided by the author into the symptomatic and the functional groups. According to the author it is useful to distinguish "short cycle hypersomnia", i.e. those with short duration of sleep attacks (hours) and intervals, from "long cycle hypersomnia", i.e. those with long attacks (days or weeks) and intervals. The author goes on to describe different forms of symptomatic and functional hypersomnias, such as idiopathic hypersomnia, neurotic hypersomnia, the Pickwickian syndrome" and its variants as well as different varieties of periodic long cycle hypersomnias. Finally the author makes a brief mention of the syndrome of insufficiency of wakefulness.