title: Sleep medicine before and after Dickens.
abstract: Sleep disordered breathing has come to public awareness in the last 10 to 15 years. However, the roots of medical knowledge about sleep disordered breathing reach back several hundred years farther. Greek and Roman publications reported heavy snoring and breathing pauses as diseases that impaired social life. In our day, popular comic strip figures like "Obelix" remind us that the mysterious noise of heavy snoring has been nerve-racking to people since ancient times.
authors.affiliation: Sleep Disorders Clinic Bayerisch Gmain, Reichenhallerstrasse 20, 83457 Bayerisch Gmain, Germany. nikinetzer@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Nikolaus C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Netzer
mesh_terms: D004324:Drama; D004739:England; D005060:Europe; D049672:History, 19th Century; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000266:history*; D012913:Snoring / Q000266:history*