Longest Sleep on Record.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 16 October 1914, Page 8

Longest Sleep on Record.

There are many cases on record of people remaining in a sleep-like trance for several years, these trances being often caused from injuries to the head ; but no one has had so long a sleep as a woman named Caroline Alison, who lives in the little island of Okuo, off the coast of Sweden. The sleeper of Okuo was born in 1861. She was a perfectly normal child, and for the first fourteen years of her life she was strong and healthy. She did not go to work till just before her fourteenth birthday. One day she came home complaining of toothache and went to bed. Soon afterwards she fell into a deep trance, which lasted from 187:1 until 1907, a period of thirty-two years. # While in this state she did not seem to see or hear, nor did she show any trace of feeling, though her arms were pricked with pins, needles, and other sharp instruments.