Writing an Imagined Immunity: Sleep, Sleeplessness, and the Fight Against Infection

Although modern commentators date systematic study of sleep and immunity to the late 1970s, both medical and popular writing from the late 19th and early 20th centuries reveal a much earlier awareness of the immunological effects of sleep and sleep deprivation. This article demonstrates how historical actors conceptualized sleep as integral to bodily defense, thereby revealing a key part of the immune imaginary. The authors map the development of conceptual and experimental linkages between sleep and biological immunity from the late 19th century to the 1920s across the Anglophone tradition, revealing how popular writing reimagined this emerging biological connection, foregrounding representations of sleep as a vital mechanism through which individuals could fortify the body against diverse forms of invasions. The authors then identify a reorientation in popular discourse: a movement from an emphasis on the individual body towards a broader concern with the social body. Through examining this shift, it is possible to trace a reconfiguration of immunity away from the biological towards one concerned increasingly with protection from social, moral, and environmental factors.