A "Twilight Sleep" Exhibit

A twilight adventure.

Many years ago, before the age of the internet, I picked up a collection of short stories called A Month of Mystery, edited by the film director Alfred Hitchcock. Most of the stories were humdrum, but one of them struck me as a masterpiece. It was by an American writer from the early 20th century named Melville Davisson Post. Although I never came across his writing again, his name stuck in my ...

A Further Experience of the Conduct of Labour under "Twilight Sleep"

Twilight of Empire: a Narrative

Pain, pleasure, and American childbirth. From the Twilight Sleep to the Read method, 1914–1960

With reason, women at the beginning of the century were terrified by the pain and danger of childbirth until Twilight Sleep, introduced to America from Germany in 1914, promised deliverance. The aim of the method was amnesia, not anaesthesia. Mothers were supposed to "drift into motherhood lightly and imperceptibly.. .wiping the whole incident of birth-giving out of a woman's life." This state ...

Drosophila Models of Huntington's Disease Exhibit Sleep Abnormalities

The complex pathology of neurodegenerative diseases presents a challenge to researchers who model the disease, and clinicians who treat patients. The identification of early, perhaps even prodromal, biomarkers is important for developing strategies to ameliorate disease progression. Sleep disturbances are a clinical feature of Huntington's disease (HD) as well as a part of normal aging. Whether...