The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-04-14
PEOPLEW HO CAN'T SLEEP
SOME OF THE CAUSES AND SOME
OF THE CURES OF INSOMNIA.

The Views OF Physicians ana PnlloSo-
phers-Rest the Body, and Espe-
cially Rest the Brain, They Say
Curious Cures.
From the Nelo York Sun.
Emerson says in his essay on behavior:
"If YOU have not slept or have slept, or if
Won have headache. or sciatica, or le2rosv,
or thunderstroke, beseech you by all
angels to hold your peace and not pollute
the morning by corruptions and groans."
Now. if we were afflicted by any trivial
calamities like the two last named perhaps
a breakfast table-discussion of them might
be inopporsune and insxcsable. But the
man or woman who has lain with wide
staring eyes through the long night watches,
while all the trials and worries incident to
living, exaggerated to twice their natural
importance, have danced about in ghoulish
giee and passed and repassei in endless
grotesque, demoniacal procession, such a
person is very little lower than the angels
who does not attempt a rehearsal of the
horrors the next morning to the first sym
pathetic listener encountered.
1t isn't the lying awake, but the ineffect-
ual and exasperating attempt to sleep, which
to continually make, that brings you to the
verge Of insanity and thoughts of suicide.
You evolve long lines of woolly sheep out
of your inner consciousness and compel
them to tumble over fence one after the
other, and just as you really have them in
fine working order doesn't one perverse eve
trot sedately off to some verdant hillock.
followed by her lambkius, and refuse to
come back to the fence at all, thus breaking
the continuity! or else, despite your efforts,
the procession will come to an end
or the clock strikes, sounding like the
report of howitzer through the still
ness, and you are wider awake than before.
Then there is the counting forward,
backward, by threes, SKIES, Mines and
all the time you are making your tired head
follow feverishly the dancing figures you
know that on the footboard, laughing In
fendish delight, sits your particular pet
worry, like a grinning, gibbering, animated
skeleton, waiting until the WEAKNESS begins
to Supply you TO rattle his bones and waken
you again. Nights the time for worrytin',"
says Josiah Aliens wife in her quaint dia-
lect, and 81 have only to lie awake little
while to imagine that me and Josiah is
bein' burgled of all our worldly store.n
After four hours wakefulness your best
girl is sure to have engaged herself to the
other fellow, the horse you have bet on has
gone lame, the bank where you deposit has
suspended, your new spring bonnet isn't be-
coming, or if it is you are sure of a stormy
Easter morning.
And then comes some kindly friend who
suggests the particular narcotic that puts
him to sleep. You take it. 1t works like
charm. Presently you can't sleep without
it. Then you can't sleep with it, 1t mas
worn itself out, and the last state of that
man is worse than the first Not only this,
but thoughtful physicians claim that the
Nv rti nj al
restful, and that the free use of narcotics is
the first step in the dissolution of will
power, which leads ultimately to disastrous
ends. The use of any drug, whether mar
cotic or stimulant, which makes a person
surrender his will power even for limited
time, takes away certain fine something
which makes it easier for that person to
surrender his will to any other individual
who may tempt him to the doing of that
from which his better nature shrinks, and
would recol If not thus Initiated. Aud it is
claimed that the iniquity in high places in
the social world is largely due to the I'M
limited and continuous use of stimulants in
the hours of activity and narcotics in the
periods of rest.
all dangerous. You frequently hear people
say that they have not slept wink all
night, which statement, if literally true,
would indicate serious conditions, but the
fact of the matter usually is that such a
person has snored three hours to lying
awake one. When person doesn't manage
to sleep even five or ten minutes during an
entire night. though trying to fall asleep,
there is danger requiring the physicians
skill, but many simple remedies for Sleep
lessness of less severe and protracted per-
sistency have been suggested by physicians
and individuals which may be interesting,
and possibly beneficial, to the great army of
the afflicted.
Dr. William B. Wood, who has some ad-
vanced and original theories on this subject,
says; Insomnia is almost invariably a
symptom of some functional or organic dis
order, and implies the existence of causes
that have been operative for some consid-
cradle time AS we ordinarily speak of
sleeplessness functional disorders only are
the responsible causes we have in mind. 1t
is condition warning us of more serious
Complications to follow. Sleep is the period
in which the nervous system is called upon
for the least expenditure of energy and the
time when the the greatest reinforcement of
the system takes place. Natures storage
battery is recharged through the activity
of the nutritive system. This reinforcement
process is interfered with by any degree Of
sleeplessness, because perfect functional
cerebral rest is natures law of repair In
the consideration of questions Of practical
hygiene it is often forgotten that from
one-third to one-half of our time is spent
in our sleeping apartments, and that this
period is one in which nature demands that
the individual should be in the condition
that best conduces to nerve repose and
tissue repair So far as the treatment of
the various degrees of insomnia is con-
cerned, it is a question of the utmost i'm
portance. The conditions of our civiliza-
ton are such that overexcitement and
overwork are almost a law of daily being
In the life of our cities great numbers of
people are daily expanding more nervous
energy than their vital forces can replace
They are expanding more than their income
and making inroeds upon their capital
The nervous system is usually the last to
break down and the last to recover. How
far it is safe and wise to use narcotics, soda
tves and stimulants is by no means certain
Sleep artifcaliy produced by whatever
means does not result i'm genuine functional
rest nor bring into play the normal restora-
tive powers Of the system. Under these
conditions the daily sleeping potion becomes
too easy habit and soon necessity, and
only seems to defer the day when exhausted
nature viii exact her penalty and demand
her only renedy-rest."
DR.. William A. Hammond recommends
as therapeutical measures of relief for in-
somnia first "those which by their tendency
to soothe the nervous system or distract at
tenJlon diminish the action of the heart and