FIVE-HOUR YAWN.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 92, 7 June 1912, Page 8

FIVE-HOUR YAWN.

.t A remarkable case, of persistent yawning, the Beieures following each other in -clo&& succession fbrolbre than five hours and incapacitating the victim during this period, is| described by a Brixton, medical correspondent. The patient, a perfectly healthy young domestic servant in a Heme Hill household, began to yawn about fivfe o'clock in the evening, the paroxysms continuing without cessation until she fell asleep about 10 o'clock. The pain in the jaw muscles became intense, due to fatigue following on their unaccustomed over-use , The doctor suggests that the seizure was due to the powerful influence which mental suggestion has over the muscles used in the act of yawning. "Practically all the muscles used in yawning are controlled by one nerve, thfe fifth cranial," the doctor writes., "The reason why you are so apt to yawn when you see someone else yawning or even when you think about yawning is generally believed to be that some reflex stimulus, as a result of the mind's action, finds its way along the fibres of this fifth nerve which sets the yawning muscles in motion. "This young woman's first two or three yawns were very possibly due to • the ordinary causes, such as fatigue, boredom, or oxygen hunger through sitting in a badly-ventilated room. Then her attention became drawn to the fact that she had yawned several times. This focusing of the mind on the subject of yawning was thereaftre sufficient stimulus to keep up the process until her mind was taken oif the subject on falling asleep."