Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1897-10-20

accustomed to their three square meals
day all their lives, and they don''
see why they should have dyspepsia
now. There are lot of possible dan
gers about too much sleep in the way
of causing certain ailments to say
nothing of the wear and tear of the
nerves brought about by trying te
force yourself to sleep more than your
nature says, just because you've heard
that the normal man spends third o.
his life in bed. Why, don't you know
that the higher in the intellectual
rank, the less sleep man requires
Goethe and Humboldt got along with
two or three hours of sleep day. Ma
poleon needed only four or five hours
and Kant scolded his pupils for ex.
ceeding that limit. Now, you're in
tellectual."
"And a victim of insomnia" added
the patient.
"I once saw Chinaman I admired, y
continued the doctor. "He was wait.
ing for a train at station consisting
of platform set down in the middle
of nowhere out west. We intellectual
Caucasians fretted and fumed, but my
Celestial merely sat down on one side
of the edge of a barrel, rested his feet
against the other edge-an uncomfort'
able position, you will observe-laid
his arms on his knees and his head on
bis arms, and went off to sleep as
sweetly as child up there on his
perch. 1t is a faculty that civilization
deprives US of, that of going to sleeE
at any time and in any place. The
Papuans fall asleep when they've
nothing else to do. So do all savages
So do dogs"
"Dogs can fall asleep at any moment
during the day." interrupted the pa:
tient, "because they stay awake all
night barking, as you'd know if you
had ever tried to keep one in house
in the country"
"When you're growing DID," con.
tinued the doctor, "you may know that
your intellect is all right and your
powers are unimpaired so long as you
stay awake; it's only when you feel
a constant need of sleep that the de-
cay of the mental faculties has set in
"Then maybe I'm growing young,
said the patient. "I used to take q
nap after dinner, and now don't even
do that"
"a good thing for you," said the
doctor. "You oughtn't to sleep after
meals"
"How about the famous siesta oi
Latin countries" ?"
"It's all wrong. If doctors wait
long enough case is pretty sure to
come along that will tell them what
they want to know. 1t would, oi
course, be easier to cut people up and
find out the things we want to know
as the questions arises, but there are
objections to doing that, and so we
have to wait until good fortune inju
somebody in the right way. So it
happened that once man had his
stomach cut open by an accident, and
his doctor made use of him. The doc.
tor learned among other things that
the process of digestion became weak
er while the man was asleep. The
moral is that it isn't we'll to sleep after
meals. Some people feel the need OF
a nap after eating. That is because
their digestive apparatus isn't in good
working order, or because they are
gluttons. In either case blood needed
elsewhere is drawn to the stomach,
and the brain is impoverished. That's
why serpents and certain other ami
mails 60 to sleep after gorging them
selves"
"That may be all right about the
other man." persisted the patient,
"but in my case it is different. 1 don't
sleep now because I've had lot of
care on my mind"
"Maybe that's the reason and maybe
it isn't" replied the doctor. Scare
works both ways. Toward the end OF
his career Napoleon sometimes could
scarcely keep awake at critical mo-
ments in the midst of battle. They
said it was his liver, but 1T wasn't.
The same phenomenon was observed
among the ancients. A passage was
called to my attention only the other
day from Montaigne's essay on sleep.
He describes the suicide of the Empe-
ror Ohio. After having made all ar
rangements for killing himself, he was
so overcome by drowsiness that he fell
asleep, and soon was snoring. In the
same way Cation, when about to make
away with himself, was overcome by
sleep, and once the Emperor Augustus,
when engaged in a naval battle, could
hardly keep himself awake long
enough to give orders"
GAIL that is very interesting" said
the patient, "but what has all that to
do with my case ?"
"Everything in the world" answer
ed the doctor. "If we only knew
what sleep was, might do something
for you that would remedy the evil in