The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1875-05-27
NATURES SWEET REsToRRR.
The Best Way OF Getting Asleep and
Keeping
Frank Buckland's Essay in Land and Wal


foe, insomnia, still tenaciously clings tx
him. He passes whole nights waking
At morning dawn, slumber, if not sleep
comes at last, but day finds him weary
and unfit for work, yet with mountains
of work to get through" Having paiC
/ considerable attention to this important
| question of being able to procure sleep
l venture to record what I know abou
it.
have no hesitation in saying that the
proper thing to do is to go to sleep i'm
mediately Cor at least very soon) after
the meal of the day. All animals al
ways go 10 sleep, if they are not dis.
| tUrbed, after eating. This is especially
/ noticeable in dogs and the great John
| Hunter shO we'd by an experiment that
| digestion went on during sleep more
than when the animal was awake and
| going sbOut This is his experiment
| He took two d jgs and gave them the
same quantity of food. One of them
was then allowed to go to sleep the
| other was taken out hunting. At the
end of three or four hours he killed
both these dogs. The food in the
| stomach of the dog which had been
asleep was quite diRested in that OF
| the one which had been hunting Was
not digested at all
The human frame cannot do without
| sleep. I believe the reason is that the
\ mysterious property-for want of bet
ter name we call it "vitll energy
gradually leaks out during the day.
| During sleep the machinery of the
| body, especially the brain, becomes re-
charged with it. The cause of not be-
ing able to sleep-I write now of people
IN good health and hard workers wit h
their brains-is that the brain cannot, / o
to speak, "go down. " but it continues to
act, more or less. My father, when
writing the Sc Bridgeport Treatise, hsd
his own way of working. He was an
excessively busy man during the day,
and had only the night hours in which
be could write. He generally dined at
o'clock, and immediately after dinner
went to sleep for tgo or three hours.
He then got up and worked on until 2
or 3 o'clock in the morning. Just be-
fore retiring he took some light pud-
ding or sandwich, with cocoa or milk.
Thus he always slept veil, as the blood
was diverted from the brain to the
stomach.
This fact, think, shows the advisa-
bility of going to sleep Immediately
after eating. This ignored fact always
OOOuAo " n4AOA Il SOO OANA
gentlemen nodding over their wire.
Nature says to them, 60 to bed. -
They will not GO to bed, but still nature
will not allow her law to be broken, SO
she sends them to sleep sitting in the
chairs. People, therefore, who feel
sleepy after dinner ought to dine late,
and go straight to bed when sleepy
feeling comes over them.
Most good folks, however, do the
worst possible thing imaginable they
retire altogether into the drawing room,
and then, to make matters worse, they
drink tea and coffee. Now regard tea
and coffee, when taken at night, to be
poison to certain constitutions. It is
very well in the morning, but it is very
bad at night. The reason why tea aud
coffee should not be taken at nighus is
that the one contains an alkaloid called
theme, and the other contains an al
kalOid called caffein. These two aka
loids taken into the system stimulate
the brain, and do not allow it to go to
rest. speak of this matter from eX-
perience. If I take thOughtlessly a
| cup of tea or coffee after o'clock in
the evening, going to bed about II, 1
cannot go to sleep; and if the brain
does fall asleep, the alkalOid will wake
il up in about an hour or two. Sleep
lessness, therefore, is usually caused
by tea or coffee, though, strange to
say, tea and cOffe actually send some
people into sound slumber.
we'll recollect the late DR.. Wilber-
force, then Bishop of Oxford, telling
my father, then most actively engag,
as Dean of Westminster, of his patient
way of going to sleep. 1t is better than
the old fashioned prescription of watch
ing sheep jumping through a hedge
one after another, ships sailing out TO
sea, etc. The bishops prescription
was to repeat very slowly the vOwels a
EIO. In doing this, they were to be
eaintly pronounced with each inspira-
fion and expiration. 1t will be found
tasy TO do this without moving the
lips, but the vowel q must not be pro-
| nounced, for tC do this the muscular
action of the lips necessarily takes
| place, and sleep comes not. I advise
my readers to try this plan.
L once heard a midshipman who COM
| planned that he could not sleep at mig ut
! because there were no waves dashing
against the sides of the ship. To this
noise he had 50 many months been ac-
cusJomed that he could not sleep with
| out the familiar sound. He asked his
motte er to dash pals of water against
his bedroom door till he went to sleep.
I was once told, when on a salmon ID
spection, that a certain miller could
sleep so long as the continued whirr of
the mill wheel was going on, but di-
rectly after the noise stopped he
awOke.
The deepest sleep is always just be-
fore dawn. 1t Is, l believe, probable
lhat some change takes place at this
time in the atmospheric condition, as
the hour just before dawn is selected
by savages to make their attack, and it
is at this tiRle also, l believe, that a
great proportion of children are born.
When staying at a country house, un-
fortunately the visitor not accustomed
to country sounds gets often woke up.
The abominable cocks begin their hor-
ribIe Growing, called in Hereforshire
&" cock shoot" / recollect on one oc-
casion, after the wretched cocks had
gone from the fowl house to feed, 1
fell asleep, and then came a most awful
cry of agony in fact, the farmer killt d
a pig under my window-enough to
wake anybody. This pig was most
vOciferous, but as he was inundated IN
honor of my arrival, I could not say
much.
My monkeys always get sleepy when
the gas is lighted in my study, where ]
and my monkeys always sit. This
room was once called by the seruants
the masters room," but found ont
lately, by accident, that they now cal
it the " monkeys room" This is
Darwin going backward
Oceans Greatest Danger
The worst feature of the loss of the
Schiller is that it resulted from a eau sc
VIII ch is ever existent, and for which
there is no remedy. Fog cannot be
seen through with human eyes, aud il
cannot be uplifted or removed by hu-
man means. Every steamship that
| crosses the ocean is liable to ron foI
hours, and for days, in q fog SO dense
| that an approaching vessel could not
/ be seen IN time to avoid a collision and
when nearing the shore a like risk if
| TuD in regard to rocks and breakers.