The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-01
THE NEED OF SLEEP.
Insomnia That Perp1exes the Powers OF
the Physicians.

1t is probable, however, we quite admit,
that the effect of night on individuals
differs greatly. and that process of natu-
raj selection is continually at work, men
who cannot bear night work avoiding it,
while those to whom it is recuperative-
and every journalist knows such men
throng into the professions in which sit
ting up, if not obligatory, is at least adj
vantageous. There are extraordinary diff
ferences OF instinct in this respect, a few
men being literally unable to bear night
work, while few others deliberately leave
their whole work to be done after the sun
disappeared, says the London Spectator.
The incapacity and the faculty are CON-
nected in some way with the differences IN
the power of sleeping, which still remain
among the perplexities of physicians. Why
can some men sleep at will, and some
nervous" men, too, while others, some
times very "heayy" men with apparently
immovable nerves, are tortured by in
somnia2 Why, too, do some men seem to
obtain sufficient rest with five hours sleep,
while others require nine? Do some men
"sleep Slow" as Mr.. Smedley jocularly
argued in one of his amusing stories, or do
they actually require more sleepp We
cannot answer the question any more than
the doctors can, but we agree on one side
of the subject most heartily with the
British Medical Journal. the popular
prejudice against sleep works an infinity
of mischief.
There are plenty of sluggards even among
the cultivated class, but the sleep-sluggard
is in that class very rare specimen. The
tendency OF the educated is to wakefulness,
and the man who does intellectual work
and exhibits what his friends think dis
position to oversleep is obeying healthy
instinct. Sleep recuperates him, and he
knows 1t. The popular notion that young
man who works with his head yet sleeps
for nine hours is a sluggard is popular non
sense. No man whose brain is active and
who does not drink ever sleeps more than
is good for him, and the cure, if he seems
to do it, is to let him sleep till he gives his
habit up.
Sleep is a delight till you have had
enough of it, but five minutes beyond that
point it becomes an insufferable bore.
Nobody sleeps twice around the clock or
once around the clock, unless impelled
thereto consciously or unconsclously by
exhaustion, for which again sleep is itself
the best and the most natural remedy.
The contrary idea has arisen, as we be-
lieve, purely from selfishness, the extreme
inconvenience and household upsetting
which arises when any one necessary
member of the family will not "keep
hours" Women, we fear, are constantly
injured by the demands made on them in
this respect. and SO not unfrequently are
men, the penalty in the former sex being
paid in the shape of nerves on edge, and
in the latter in a kind of WEAKNESS most
fatal to fruitful intellectual exertion.
We suppose seven hours of sleep suffices
for the majority, or they would not have
fixed upon that period as the proper stint,
but numbers of young men positively re-
quire eight, and half the women who think
would be the better for ten. There is no
rule, of course, and can be none, any more
than there can be a rule as to the precise
quantity of food which benefits an indi-
vidual, but opinion should be more merci-
full than it is. 1t has hardened itself from
studying an old experience, and forgets
that in our day the nerves are twice as
much tried as they were century ago, and
that the grand medicine for the nerves
ing and see what its temper is like.