Klarinet Archive - Posting 000329.txt from 1994/02

From: "Jeffrey S. Berman" <JBERMAN@-----.EDU>
Subj: Breathing lessons
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 13:34:52 -0500

In reply to Dan's anecdote about Menhuin, there is a myth about a beautiful
mermaid named Ondine who, upon being spurned by some guy cursed him
so that he would cease all "automatic" functions including breathing unless
he did them by dint of will. There is a human disease named after her, called
"Ondine's curse" where breathing during sleep is markedly decreased.

"Since you left me, Ondine, all the things my body once did by itself,
it does now only by special order....It is an exhausting piece of
management
I've undertaken. I have to supervise five senses, two hundred bones, a
thousand muscles. A single moment of inattention, and I forget to
breathe. He died, they will say, because it was a nuisance to breathe."

from J. Girandoux, "Ondine, a Romantic Fantasy in Three Acts"

Jeff Berman.