The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1871-08-02
Peculiarities of Sleep.

Why, for instance, can some men main
tain their bodily and mental vigor with so
small an amount of sleep as falls to their
share? Lord Brougham, and many other
great statesmen and lawyers, are known to
have been content with marvellously small
quantity of sleep. Frederick the Great is
said to have allowed himself only five hours !;
John Hunter, five hours; General Elliott,
the hero of Gibraltar, four hours; while
Wellington, during the Peninsular war, had
still less.
How, on the other hand, can we account for
the cormorant sleepers? De Move, the
mathematician, could Though it is to be
hoped he did not sleep twenty hours out of
the twenty four hours at stretch. DR..
Reid, the metaphysician, 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 later days
almost entirely. In the middle of the last
century young French woman, at Toulors
had for half year f5s of heightened 81
varying from three to thirteen days each.
About the same time girl at Newcastle on
Tyne slept fourteen weeks without waking /;
and the waking process occupied three days
to complete. DR.. BlaDchet, of Paris, men
tions the case of lady who slept for twenty
days together, when she was about eighteen
years of age, fifty days when she was about
twenty, and had nearly whole years sleep
from Easter Sunday, 1862, till March, 1868.
During this long sleep (which physicians call
hysteric coma) she was fed with milk and
soup, her front teeth being extracted to OBJ
tain an opening into her mouth. Stow, in
his Chronicle" tells us that "the 9th of
April, 1916, being Tuesdaie in Easter weeke,
W. Foxley, potmaker for the mint in the
Tower of London, fell asleep, and so con-
tinued sleeping, and could not be walked with
pricking, cramping, or otherwise, till the
frs; day of next term, which was full four
teen nights. The causes of his thus sleep
ing could not be knowne, tho the same were
diligently searched for by the Kings ply
sicians and other learned men; yea, the
King himself examined ye said W. Foxley,
who was in all points found at his waking to
be as if he had slept but one night. " Another
very noble instance was that of Samuel Chill,
ton, Tinsbury, recorded in one of the early
volumes of the Philosophical 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 9 to August Z.
He awoke, dressed, went out into the fields,
where he worked as laborer, 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 18th of August, and did not wake till
the 10Th of November, Notwithstanding the
pungent applications of hellebore and sal
ammoniac to his nostrils, aud bleeding to
the extent of fourteen ounces. He woke,
asked for bread and sheese, but went off to
sleep again before 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.-AU the Year Round.