Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-09-03
Curiosities of sleep.

We suppose, with Cullen, that our Or
gans of sense sleep successively, and with
different degrees of intensity-sight slum-
bering first, then those of taste, smell, hear
ing, and, lastly, those of touch. In TurSey
if q person fall asleep in the neighborhOod
of poppy field, the wind blowing towards
him from it, he will become gradually mar
cotlzed, and would even die, if the country
people, well acquainted with the fact, did
not convey him to the nearest well or
stream, emptying pitcher after pitcher up
on his face and body. A DIR. Oppenheim,
during his residence in that land, owed his
life to this simple yet efficacious treatment.
DR.. Reid mentions friend of his who be-
came drowsy and fell asleep whenever
any thing occurred to distress him. A wo-
man at Renault slept seventeen or eigh-
teen hours day for fifteen years, and
another is recorded to have once slept
during forty days. A man twenty
five years of, age, near Bath, Eng
land, slept month; and, two, years
after, for seventeen days. DR.. MaciB tosh
mentions a woman who spent three-fourths
of her life in sleep, and another physician
! has collected several instances of the same
| sort, quoting the case of a young lady who
| slept for six weeks, and recovered. Hero
dotus, in his .sMelopomene," alludes, al
though incredulously, to a race OF Scyth-
ians, or Tartars, in the extreme north who
were reported to sleep away six months of
the year. 1.-TWO young gentlemen, college
students, went to bed the nightpreviOus te
their examination; they slept soundly; tho
elder one rose up early in the morning aud
lief the young brother in bed, still asleep;
h remained so for two hours more, having
slept altogether more more than ten hours,
when he woke in state of complete in
! sanity The same author, DIR. Graves,
likewise relates the case of gentleman
who fell asleep, with his hands folded to-
| gether before him on the table, after din
r,aH n.. to-
! lyzed, and remained paralytic to the day of
his death, not long afterwards.
| Frederick the Great and John Hunter
l seldom slept more than four or five hours
| in the twenty-four. DIR. Macintosh men,
tions lady in perfect health, who never
slept more than tour or five hours in the
4 twenty-four, and then only half an hour at
1 a time. The venerable ST. Augustine pru-
IDENTIFY divided his hours into three divis-
} ions, eight each, devoted to sleep, recrea-
} tion and converse with the world. Quin,
the famed actor, could, at pleasure, slunber
twenty-four hours in succession; and DR..
} Reid, the metaphy sician.. when he liked,
could take as much food and sleep as would
4 serve him for couple of days.
The Dauphin son of tue unfortunate
Louis XVI, descendant of the sovereign
of France and Navarro, confined in lone
some nook, with hole in the wall to re-
ceiye his scanty food, was killed from the
j "aut VI sieep- Scarcely were MS IeVerlsn
! temples laid upon his pallet when stern
voice resouuded around the walls, "Capet,
how are your" By such refined cruelty
his spirit, drawing its last gasp, silently
> gave up the ghost, in his 10th year, June
Il 9th, 1885, st. Dominic, SO famed in the
old annals, never reposed, except on the
boards, which served him for bed.
Pt. Bonaventura,on one efthe first Franciscans,
used a common stone instead OF pillow !;
and another, ST.. Peter, of Alcantara, slept
only one hour and half in the twenty
four, for forty years together, either kneel-
ing or standing, his head leaning aside on
little piece of wood fastened for that pur-
pose. In the WALL Uusuallyi he ate but
once in three days; still, he reached old
age. though his body became so attennated
lnae II seemed composed of the roots, and
bis skin 80 parched as to resemble the eIrv
y bark more than fiesh.-N. T. Observer.