[a. Gr. κῶμα (κωματ-) deep sleep, lethargy: cf. κοιμά-ειν to put to sleep.]
Pathol. ‘A state of unnatural, heavy, deep and prolonged sleep, with complete unconsciousness and slow, stertorous, often irregular, breathing’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.), due to pressure on the brain, to the effect of certain poisons, or other causes, and frequently ending in death; stupor, lethargy.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. ix. 200. Sneezing … is … of good signality in Lethargies, Apoplexies, Catalepsies, and Coma’s.
1782. Heberden, Comm., vii. When the scarlet fever proves fatal, a coma will sometimes show itself.
18[?]. Hooper, Physic. Vade M., § 914. It is often important to distinguish the coma of drunkenness from that of apoplexy.
1877. Roberts, Handbk. Med., I. 13. Death beginning at the brain is said to be by coma.
1895. Alienist & Neurol., XVI. 217. After a few hours incomplete consciousness, Dr. Tuke gradually lapsed into a coma.
b. Coma vigil: Applied in earlier medical treatises to a condition anterior to fevers: see quots. 1708–1834; but by Sir W. Jenner to a lethargic condition in which a typhus fever patient lies with wide open eyes, totally unconscious, but muttering in delirium.
1708. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Coma Vigil, waking Drowsiness, is a Disease wherein the Patients are continually inclined to Sleep, but scarce can sleep, being affected with a great Drowsiness.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. i. 55. In a coma vigil it seems to me, that the approach of the opposite sides of the ventricles excites such violent vibrations, on account of the inflammation of the medullary substance, perhaps of these side particularly, as to awake the patient, and throw him into great confusion and consternation.
1758. R. Brookes, Gen. Pract. Physic, II. 113. A Coma Vigil … they have a strong inclination to sleep, and yet either don’t sleep at all, or, if they do, awake immediately with little Relief, but have no delerium … Generally a Forerunner of a Phrenzy in acute Fevers.
1834. J. M. Good, Study Med. (ed. 4), III. 446.
1871. Sir T. Watson, Princ. Physic (ed. 5), II. 869. It [coma vigil] is much more common in typhus than in typhoid fever, if it be not peculiar to the former: and it is of most evil omen.
1886. Fagge, Princ. Med., I. 145. In a peculiar state to which Jenner has appropriated the term Coma vigil.
c. fig.
1876. Gladstone, in Pall Mall Budget (1887), 14 April, 6/2. Honour, duty, compassion, and I must add shame, are sentiments never in a state of coma.
