Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1877-07-12
DIR. HAMMOND ON SLEEP
From the New York World, April 29.]

Chickering Hall last evening for the benefit
of the Metropolitan Throat Hospital upon
the subject of ''Sleep" DR.. Hammond began
his lecture by comparing the periods of rest
enjoyed by the vital organs of the human
body, saying that the heart, aggregating the
moments between its beats, rested SIX hours
out of the twenty four, and that the liver,
stomach, etc., enjoyed each its period of in
activity and recuperation, but that the brain
had no rest save in the moments OF sleep
sometimes not then. The lecturer then
sketched briefly the principles OF the wear
and tear of the human organism and of its
building up. The waste of the vital tissues
was repaired almost as soon as it was made,
but the change was constant. The hair OF
Yesterday was not the hair of to-day and the
muscle for extending the arm was not identi-
cally the same muscle after the arm had been
extended. The resfreshment and restorative
of the brain was sleep.
DR.. Hammond narrated several anecdotes
illustrating the necessity of sleep and of the
even when the subject is laboring under Sc
we're physical discomfort or pain. Soldiers
Frequently, the doctor said, had been known
to sleep soundly when in the saddle, and he
had often slept himself in this manner. He
also told of soldier who walked a distance
of 200 yards while in a sound sleep, and he
would have doubtless walked further if he
had not been awakened by striking his foot
sharply against a stone. There was re-
corded instance of Chinaman, convicted for
murder of his wife, having been sentenced to
die through the deprivation of sleep. Guards
were posted with him constantly whose duty
it was to keep him always awake. On the
eight day the wretch fell upon his knees and
begged for the blessed privilege of being
strangled or performing hari-kari. The
amount of sleep necessary to health varies,
the doctor said, with age. In infancy the
constructive processes are exceptionally lively
and the child needs, accordingly, great deal
of sleep; and again, in old people decay pre-
dominates over construction, and more sleep
is needed. DR.. Hammond did not think that
the necessary amount of sleep which man
requires depends absolutely upon the size of
the brain. He lnstanced the case of cele-
brated French surgeon who was said under
the excitement of u certain research in which
he was engaged to have gone without sleep
for period of six weeks, and of general
whom report made to have gone whole
year sleeping but one hour out of every a.
DR.. Hammond thought, however, that these
figures are to be taken cuna gaano salts. Men
whose work was mental required more sleep
than men whose work was physical. More
than this, perhaps, there was no positive law
to be set down. The necessity varied with
the individual One human machine seemed
pretty we'll oiled and run so as not to need
much repair; another grated and needed
mending constantly.
There was difference of opinion among
medical men, DR.. Hammond said, as to the
- oIo h,,k1 1,oI Il u ~ coA
why there should be. The condition of the
brain during sleep, he thought, was only a
greater measure of the condition provoking
Sleep. Sleep was produced by diminution
of blood in the brain. The doctor cited sew
eral cases to show that there was less blood
in the brain during sleep than during wake
fulness. One, reported by French surgeon,
was of young man who fell and cut fissure
in his skull. The bone never grew together,
but the scalp grew over the wound and lay
directly upon the brain, and when the young
man slept the scalp over the tissure sunk
down to considerable extent, but when he
was awake the scalp remained even and at
times bulged oct. DIR. Hammond also ex-
planned series of experiments which he had
himself made with dogs, and in which he had
determined the amount of blood in the brain
more accurately by graduated instrument,
which he had inserted through the skull upon
the surface of the brain. AS the brain en-
larged or diminished the fluctuations were
registered, and there was found to be great
difference in the size of the brain during
sleep and wakefulness ''And nothing could
have altered the size of the brain but the
blood there was in it," the doctor said, $50
we have it irrefutably established that during
sleep there is less blood in the brain than dur
ing wakefulness.
DR.. Hammond also considered heat and
cold as influences to sleep, and discussed how
to make people sleep who through nervous
ness or some other extraneous cause were not
so disposed. He advised them to think of
some disagreeable thing, and had known of a
man who was invariably able to get sleep by
the simple device of allowing water to drop
by drop into tin pan. The lecturer ques-
toned also the accuracy of the common stor-
les of extraordinary thinking during sleep.
With Coleridge and De Quincy he thought
there was opium mixed with it. Concerning
dreams, DR.. Hammond thought they were
not original impressions but were founded
upon some former experiences; and yet they
were some at times sufficiently eccentric.
Delicate women, the doctor said, deliberately
entered upon a career of crime in their
dreams, and wakefully honest men were
vilelv wicked without so much as blush.
Don't despise little things. From TIME i'm
things that seemed infnitesimal in
themselves have led to the most important re-
suits. It was the cackling of geese that saved
Rome; it was the falling of an apple that led
o the discovery of the laws of gIavitation
t was through the medium of a fine-tooth