Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1898-09-01
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DANGER POINT IN SLEEP.
The Time of Night When the Human
Machine Almost stops.

The Time Of Night When the Human
Machine Almost Stops.
Very curious and interesting is the
temporarv uneasiness of all night sleep
ing humans and animals at about
O'Clock every morning. AT that hour
they give little means, awaken partial
ly or wholly and then either drop back
into slumber or into death. Physical
giants among men and lions among ami
mails have this experience, just as do
the frailest babes or weakest kittens.
Viewed in any and every light, the oc-
currencs is remarkable. Why is it not
at midnight at | a. m, 2 a. IN. or in
the case of late sleepers why does it not
come at 6 OF O'Clock? A man asked
some of the leading physicians regard
ing this occurrence and cleaned some
most interesting information.
At the hour of about 3 o'clock every
morning every night sleeping man,
woman. child and animal is nearer TO
death than at any other moment iii all
the pa hours 1t is then that the more
active of the vitals come the nearest to
stopping or running down. They come
SO near il that if they came "A breath
an atom-uearer it they would stop
The thought is one of absorbing inter
est.
The machinery of life comes with
in Just hairbreadth of stopping at
some moment near a. III. The why of
this is explained as follows: The com
posure of the body when lying still pro
duces not only rest, but that same ele-
ment of danger 50 omnipresent to all
machinery left unattended-the absence
of watchful brain.
In welcoming the hours of sleep you
unconsciously welcome death s most adj
vantageous time for conquering you.
Every moment you are asleep your
physical self is running unmatched by
the engineer. The supply of coal tfood)
for the furnace is withheld. The steam
(blood) in the pipes runs low. This neg
lect of the engine room Of the body CON
tinues until some moment at about 3 "A.
m the machinery all but stops In the
healthy or fairly healthy body the COM
ing of this moment produces IA wild
shock to the system, and this shock
causes you TO unconsciously throw out
your arms and legs, rub your nose vio-
lently, moan, take deep breath and
! turn over. Your doing all this-or most
of it-has literally and of sober truth
saved your life 1t gave fresh impetus
to the almost stopped action of the
heart, which in turn restored the well
nigh stopped circulation all throughout
your body. The moan and deep breath
quickened the action of the lungs and
reused them To their usual rate of speed.
The rest that their organs had received
by being allowed to run slow-to run
almost down--enabled them, with the
restarting administered by the 3 o'clock
connection to successfully begin anoth-
er run, carrying you over the death
point and allowing you to resume the
full period of rest necessary to the brain
and To the nerves and muscles Of the
limbs and other portions of the body.
As to what causes this little shock
that carries Us over the bridge of death
the wiSeSt of the wise know nothing.
The theories about it are legion, but
they are only theories. The percentage
of deaths at this marvellous moment ex-
ceeds that of any other in the "a hours,
while the number of old people who die
at about 8 o'clock in the morning is APP
pallingly in excess of their death rate
tor any other time. In all cases at all
critical it is said that the physician
secretly breads the hour a. III. a
hundred times more than scarcely any
other incident in practice, while to all
that lives and breathes it brings the
most momentous time of all existence.
Cincinnati Enquirer