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Etectric Sleep Machine Devised

Transistorized Unit Is Successful in nical Tests

By STACY V, JONES Special to The New Tork Times

A professor of electrical engineering has invented a portable electric sleep-inducer. The effect has been compared with that of phenobarbital

Patents of the Week

Dr. Omar Wing. at present on sabbatical leave from Columbia Uníversity. will recelve a patent June 14 for the device, which is called the Electrosom.

The National Patent Development Corporation, New York, to which the patent is assigned, is arranging for clinical tests on about 100 human zubjects, to suppiement an earlier study.

After the tests, the company hopes to market a hospital model at about \$300. Eventually, with approval by the Food and Drug Administration, a simpler design for individual use is planned, to sell under \$100.

Prof. Omar Wing with sleep-inducing apparatus he devised

National Patent hoids the Ameri rights to a sleep macr hatented in 1964 by three 7.ussian engineers, but regards the Wing instrument as much superior.

The Russian version was considerably heavier and more expensive, required vacuur tubes instead of transistors, and had to be left plugged into the wall.

The new sleep inducer fits In a light case, about the size of a cigar-box. It ls transistorized and powered by a rechargeable cadmium - nickel battery, about flashlight-size. A timer will turn it off after 20 or 30 minutes.

Electric pulses are applied to the head through pads. The patent describes a wave train of 30 or 40 cycles a

The Ner York Times

second, with brief puises at 18 or 20 voits, which enter at the nape of the neck and exit through the eyelids.

The pulses are adjusted "until the patient barely feeis discomfort, and experiences Continued on Page 44, Colum 4

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HE NW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1966.

Wide Variety of Ideas Covered B, Patents Issued During Week

Continued From Page 35

alternate black and white color sensations."

In the earlier study, Dr. Bernard Straus, professor of medicine at New York Medi. cal. Coliege, ·employed .the Wing device on 34 voluntary patients suffering from in. somnia and regularly receiv. ing medication.

Both the subjects and the attending nurse reported that there weremore goed nights sleep" when the instrument was employed.

In Dr. Straus's opínion, the instrument had efficacy in inducing sleep, but he thought further study was needed to determine whether the nurse was right in pronouncing-it as effective as phenobarbital He said the extremely low. power source made it safe for patients.

While on leave, Dr. Wing is in the. Computer Science depp ent of the L.B.M. ResearL.. Center. Yorktown Heights, N. Y. He is co-inventor of a. method of comverting a television receiver to provide simultaneous sound in several languages. The new patent will be.3,255,753.

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ELECTRIC SLEEP THERAPY by F. Rubin

Sleep, induced by means of short electrical pulses, closely resembles natural sleep and is probably the most innocuous form of artificial

sleep. This form of therapy is widely practised in Russia, and to some extent elsewhere, and a special clinic has opened in London this week

Man has appreciated the curative value of slcep in various diseases for at least 2000 vears. One of the earliest records of a deliberate attempt to induce sleep for such purposesa votive tablet from Epidaurus dated 372 B.C.-tells of success-. ful "temple sleep". The "sleeping dreught"referred to on the tablet seems to be the ancestor of narcoticrtreatment widely applied in modem medicine.

Insomnia has always been e medical problem-increasingly so in modern times, The most diverse resources have been called upon to overcome it. The endeavour to induce sleep artifically has received a considcrable impetus over the past century, with the advent of appropriate drugs. However, it was very soen recognized that such pharmacologicallyinduced sleep is not always harmless. This kind of sieep treatment, better termed "prolonged narcosis", has had adherents in Europe, Russia and North America. Drawbacks inciude side-effects such as

rashes, increased temperature, bronchopneumonis, nerve and liver damage and, finallv, drug addiction. Thus it became expedient to develop a sleep therupy which would physiologically resemble naturai sleep.

Reseerchers in several countries now clnim that this has been achieved with the new method of elcctrotherapeutic sleep. Furthermnore, it is believed that it may prove useful not only for the treatment of insomnia but also for many other diseases like bronchial asthma, high blood pressure, pervous dermatitis and duodenal ulcers.

Electrotherapeutic sleep, which received its first practical applications and success in Russia more thin a decade ago. has been investigated bv. a number of scientists in Western Europe and the United States. The results of these investigations are promising from the medical viewpoint.

In practicé, electric sleep has been epplied somewhat empiricallv on the general basis that the natural electrcal activity of the brain of a slecping person is knoua, from clectroencephalogram patterns. to differ from that which occurs when the person is awake, Byinterfering with the brain's waking electrical

Figure I top This electric sleep equipment is connected to a palient's head by special electrodes that conduct millisecond pulses with a current of about one milliamp at a frequency of between one and 130 ds

Figure 2 bottom Electrorncephalograms recorded at three points on ihe left side of the head of a perzor awake but relazing with hís eyes closed displays the typical alpha-rhythm, a fairly regular wave-form with a frequency of about ten c/s and amplitude some 50 microvolts. Eye opening or the resumption of other kinds of nervous activity inhibit this electrical behaviour. In deep sleep,

however, the aipha-rhythm is replaced by the slower, irregular delta-waves : which have a freguency of only one ds or lower, though their amplitude may be as great as 200 microvolts. Electric dleep induces an ezactly similar pattern in the sleeping patient.

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activity with external electrical pulses, the argument runs, it should be possible to induce the appropriate sleeping pattern. It turns out that this procedure works, although the theoretical basis remains uncertain.

Theories of exactly what happens in natural sleep fall into two categories: the first—largely favoured by" Russian workers—is due to Pavlov who maintained that the normal alternation of sleeping at night and waking during the day was a conditioned reflex. Sleep, in this context, resuited from the inhibition of nervous activity over the whole of the cortex ofthe brain. Nowadays such cortical changes can be associated with changes in the electrical rhythms recorded by eiectroencephalography (EEG). Electrical sleep induction may be simply the result of superposition of external puises on the natural rhythms, bringing about a change in cortical activity.

The alternative theory is based upon numerous investigations that have pointed to the existence of specific "sleepwaking centres" in the brain—possibly in the hypothalarnus—whose activity normally keeps the brain awake. Electrical sleep may be the outcome of localized control of these centres by currents passing through them.

The first electric sleep-inducing apparatus wás" designed in Russia at the Vishnievski Institute for Experimental Surgical apparatus and Instruments,

Moscow. Professors M. C. Anan'yev, N. Gilliarovsky and S. Roitenburg were the pioneers inapplyingelectrotherapeutic sleep to patients.

The various types of clectric sleepinducing apparatus that are coming into use in dilferent countries generate short, "square-wave" pulses of current of low intensity and low frequency to induce a state of deep relaxation and sleep、 At present the types of pulsed current commonly used for achieving electric sieep have frequencies ranging from 1 to 130 c/s, with pulse lengths ranging from 0.2 to 1.2 milisecs and amplitudes of from Oto 1.5 milliamps.

These pulses are produced by the main component of the apparatus which takes its current supplies from the mains or batteries. Patients are connected to the generator with special electrodes, placed on the head, contact being established via the forehead and the lower part ofthe skull just above the neck.

In studies conducted in Russia, Europe, the United States and Japan electricsleep treatment has been employed either an its own or in combination with other forms of therapy in the following branches of medicine.

Psychiatryin cases of depression, anxiety states, agitated paranoid conditions, catatonia (schizophrenic fixity of posture), alcoholic and" narcotic withdrawal states, and for various forms of headache, as well as insomaia.

Internal medicine—or treating gastric ulcers and ulcer-like conditions, bigh blood pressure, asthma and the lung condition, emphysema.

GyneacologyRussian and American sources have reported exccllent results in the treatment of the carly forms of sickness in pregnancy, particularly persistent vomuiting.

Pediatrics-a number of cases are reported in the literature of succcss in the treatment of various nervous disorders following encephalitis in children.

Surgery—in the surgical department, sieep inducing apparatus can be used for putting the patient to sleep in the ward before operation to spare needless anxiety. In addition, for minor surgery, the combination of electrie sleep with'a local anaesthetic allows the dose of the latter to be greatly reduced, and helps the patient to tolerate the operation itseif better.

On the basis of the electric sleep inducing apparatus, and the results of physiological investigations of eiectrically induced sleep, a separate piece of equipment has been designed in Russia for clectronarcosis—a new proposal for inducing degrees of anaesthesia sufficient for any surgical intervention. The results of experiments are very promising, and thís type of a anaesthesia may be used in the near future for actuai surgery. It will greatly reduce the chemical agents used during operations.

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