South-eastern Independent. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1871-1871, 1871-07-28
Miscellany.
Curious SIeepers.

SLEEP is nearly as great 8 puzzle as evei
It was. Much has been discovered con
cerning the bodily peculiarities manifested
during this portion of our existence; but
all whose opinions are best worth listen
ing to admit that they are only on the
threshold of the subject yet Why, for
instance, can some men maintain their
bodily and mental vigor with so small an
amount of sleeps as falls to their share
Lord Brougham, and many other great
statesmen end lawyers, are known to
have been content with q marvelously
small quantity of sleep. Frederick the
Great is said to have sllowed himself only
five hours; John Hunter, five hours /;
General Elliot, the hero of Gibraltar, four
hours; while Wellington, during the Pen
insular War, had still less. N
How, on the other hand, to oaccount for the
cormorant sleepers? De MoiYre, the mathe
matician, could (though it is to be hoped
he did mott sleep twenty hours out of the
twenty four. Quin, the actor, sometimes
slept for twenty -four hours at a stretch. DR..
Reid, the metaphysicisn, could so manage
that one potent meal, followed by one long
and sound sleep, would last him for two
days. Old Parr slept away his latter dsys
almost entirely. In the middle of the last
century young French woman, at Tou-
louise, had, for half year, fits of
heightened sleep, varying from three to
thirteen days each. About the same time,
girl at Newcastle on-Tyne, slept four
teen weeks without waking; and the
waking process occupied three days to
complete. Doctor Blanchet, of Paris,
mentions the case of a lady who slept for
twenty days together when she was about
eighteen years of age, fifty when she was
about twenty, and had nearly a whole
years sleep from Easter Sunday, 1862, till
March, 1868 ;during this long sleep (which
physicians cali hysteric coma) she was fed
with milk and soup, one of her front teeth
being extracted to obtain an opening into
her mouth. Stow, in his Chronicle tells
US that "The 9th of April, 1916, being
Tuesdaie in Easter weeke, w. FoxleT,
potmaker for the Mint in the Tower of
London, fell asleep, and so continued
sleeping, and could not be Raked with
pricking, cramping, or otherwise, till the
first day of the next term, which was full
fourteen dsyes and fifteen nights. The
causes of his thus sleeping could not be
knowne, tho the same were diligentlie
searched for by the kings physicians and
other learned men yea, the king himselfe
examined ye said w. Foxley, who was in
u
he had slept but one night"
Another very notable instance was that
of Samuel Chiffon, of Timsbury, recorded |
In one of the volumes of the "Philosoph- |
ical Transactions of the Royal Society" !
In the year 1894 he slept for month, and |
no one could wake him. Later in the |
same year he had a four months sleep, |
from April the 9th to August the 7th; he |
draccQ0 ont inf hn fo1d Dc
(where he worked as iaborer), and found /
his companions reaping the corn which |
he had helped to SOW the day before his |
long nap; it was not till that moment that |
he knew of his sleep having exceeded the |
usual duration of few hours. He went /
to sleep again on the nth of August, and
did not wake till the 10Th of November,
Notwithstanding the pungent applications
OF hellebore and sal ammoniac 10 his nos
trils, and bleeding to the extent of four
teen ounces. He woke, asked for bresd
and cheese, but went off to sleep again be-
fore it could be brought to him, taking
another spell of sleep, which lasted till
the end of January After this it is not
recorded that he had any more of these
strange relapses.
There are instances of sleep SO intensely
deep as to deprive the sleeper of all sense
of pain. The records of the Bristol In
frmary present an extraordinary ilustra-
ton of this. One cold night tramp lay
down near the warmth of limekiln, and
went to sleep. One foot must have been
close to the fire hole of the kiln; for dur
ing the night the foot and ankle was so
burned away as to leave moth
ing but black cinder and calcined ash. de
did not wake till the kiln man reused him
next morning, nor did he know what had
until ne looked down at his char
red stump. He died in the inirmary a
fortnight Semitic AnlericaD.