Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-16
SCIENCE OF SLEEP.
A Boston Lady's Plan for Preventing
Insomnia and Suicide.
CAPITALIZATION BY THE WILL.
The Body and Its Parts Must be Sur
rendered Internationally.
1T INVOLVES PHYSICAL CULTURE

1t must have been an Irishman who sug-
gested: "If you want to see how you look
when asleep stand before the glass with your
eyes shut"
Women have been instructed in almost
everything that pertains to living. They
have been taught how to walk and stand
and talk and how to eat, and now there
comes a lady from Boston to teach
women how to go to sleep and how
to behave after they have gone to
sleep. The etiquette of slumber will strike
the average reader as bit of absurdlty,
but, like most fads, this last new one has
something in it. L believe, says writer in
the New York Press, the promulgator of
this new idea, Miss Alice Cowell, names it
the Hygiene of Sleep" and her theory is
''the LIBERALIZATION of the body" That
means that if YOU go to sleep properly and
according to rule you will be in the same
state as if you were dead save for the fact
that the circulation goes on.
IT WILL HELP KEEP SECRETS.
You will not dream, YOU will not move,
fatal secrets, as people do in books. You
simply lie an inert mass, trusting to Provi-
dence and the bed to take care of you and
hold you up. Miss CoweH says it is I'm
stinctive egotisn" that makes people try to
look out for themselves when they are
asleep. They will not trust the bed for
support, but cling TO it frantically, as if
some sudden and malicious freak of the
springs might toss them on the floor. They
dig their heads into the pillows as if some
violent uprising might occur among the
feathers.
Thev clutch the bedclothes. brace their
feet against the footboard. tie themselves in
knots and writhe and wriggle as if they
were upon redhot spikes. 1t is no wonder
that the sleeper gets up tired after such
say: 81 feel as if had been dancing all
night"
WOMEN SUFFER MORE.
Women seem to be the greatest sufferers
from the antics of sleep. Miss Cowell tells
of lady in Boston who tore out whole
handfuls of her husbands hair when asleep.
The poor man had either to seek another
couch or buy a wig. He chose to do the
former. Miss Cowell makes the statement
that if people would train themselves to
allow sleep its gracious mission the woes of
the world would be reduced to minimum.
Suicides would be thing unheard of. 1t is
this unabated state of nerve tension that
brings about mental desperation. It makes
people nervous and critical. Everything
is awry, and the world is upside down.
The mission of Miss Cowell is to tell
people how to get unwound and lay them
down in peace. She says it is the habits we
take to bed with US that play the mischief
with divine sleep. How shall we conquer
them? After listening to lecture bv Miss
COwell I deduce the following synopsis of
her theory: First of all. you must learn the
science OF LIBERALIZATION, and that is, the
spiritual side OF physical culture. This
great principle is embodied briefly in these
words: Mind active, body passive" The
physical result is the perfect independence
of each member of the body.
ENERGY GOING TO WASTE.
For instance, a seamstress would have not
TO accompany every movement of her needle
with like movement of her back and head;
q schoolteacher using one hand to clean the
blackboard would allow the other hand to
remain still; a writer would move the pen
without working the lips, or gripping the
pen until the whole arm ached. Few peo-
pie converse without working the fingers in
some way. There are orators who cannot
speak unless they comfort the body in the
most absurd manner. In this way lot of
vital energy is wasted.
The exercise which Miss Cowell gives be-
gins with the head, which is supposed to be
q wooden ball, and is rolled about at will.
at won't fall of, says the teacher. at
can't fall off. Then the arm is handled as
If it were q log of wood, the leg swings like
pendulum from the hip, and thus every
member of the body is devitalized. Even
the eyelids are taught self-control. The
results of these exercises are the calling into
activity of all the muscles of the BODY, and
at the same time rendering them wholly
independent of each other. Each mem
Der is made Immediately responsive
TO the call from the brain and wholly
indifferent to anything but its own business.
A COMPLETE SURRENDER.
Now, how does this tend to produce rest
full sleep? Because the nerves and muscles
are trained TO keep still when they are not
wanted. Surrender yourself, lay your bur-
den down. God will take care of YOU and
the bed will hold you, saws the disciple of
LIBERALIZATION. The mind and body are
brought 10 this perfect state of obedience by
the various exercises above mentioned. All
the different members of the body are un-
limbered, detached, so TO speak. These ex-
ercises must be conducted with great serious
ness and solemnity, but to the frivolous out
slider, who is not familiar with the great
principles of physical regeneration, these
performances are awfully funny.
After you have rendered your body en-
tirely passive, then get into bed, sit upright
and conceive of the backbone as a strand of
beads. Then let yourself down slowly bead
by bead, until the head falls back inert
upon the pillow. Drop the arms helplessly
and let the entire body be divested of the
responsibility which the bed is there to as
sumo. You should lie upon the back if
possible; ii not, upon the left side. Such is
the Boston recipe for wholesome, restful
slumber.
MOTHERS, do not be without Shiloh's Cure in