The National tribune., 1902-07-17
WHY We SLEEP.
Things We Do and Think About
in SIumber.
BY METH BOYCE-

BY METH BoYcE.
Button, Burdach and half n dozen other
| scientists of note have held that sleep is
the normal condition of life. with periods
of waking. The case is recorded of a ply
sician who. accepting this theory, slept Is
hours day, until, presently. he died OF
| apopleyy. 1t does not appear that either
| the man himself or science derived any
! benefit from the time he spent in this
manner. lie may not have shortened his
| life by it, although it used to be said that
excessive sleep may cause apopieNy. On
the other hand. apparently he did not
! lcngthen his life by sleeping, though, ac-
| cording to the ingenious calculation of
! Benjamin Franklin, he ought to have done
| 50. Franklin said that each person 5 heart
| is capable Of just Il certain number OF pni-
| sationS; and as the heart beats much more
| slowly in sleep. we really economize its
| strength by sleeping. According to this
! theory, however, 4 person attacked by the
| West African sleeping sickness ought to
! live, If not forever, at least to a green old
! age. whereas the fact is he very speedily
| dies. Sleep is dangerous, rs is whatever
else that affects the brain. We may hold
any theory about it that we choose, we
| may add to the countless volumes that
! have been written about its mysteries,
! leaving the subject just where it was be-
! fore; we may, If we happen to be poets,
! talk beautiful nonsense about it, which
most poets have done; but we cannot with
imPunity experiment with it-at least, not
on ourselves. The men of science that,
within the last half century, have begun
! to accumulate u fund of actual knowledge
! about sleep, have experimental on dumb
animals, on their human patients, some
! times on their friends and relatives. But
| they have not run the risk of impairing
| their own brains by under or oversleeping.
| Frankly, let us say, what they confess
| themselves. that, in spite of all scientific
! Investigations so far, the nature of sleep Is
still essentially a mystery. The real the
DRY. of sleep. which shall comprehend and
explain all its phenomena, has yet to be
/ formulated. and there is an urgent de-
| mand for it. But meantime number of
old theories have been exploded, and innu-
merable interesting facts about sleep have
| been gathered. All we want now is a
| Newton or Bacon to combine these facts
into an artistic whole.
The thing about sleep that has always
stared mankind in the face is challenge,
| a tremendous, what are you going to do
about it?' Man had to sleep. whether he
| wanted to or not; no matter how short life
seemed to him. how long his art or what
ever he wanted to do, he had to give up a
| third of his time to the highwayman in
the dark. Abraham was held up for 5S
| years out of his an hundred, three-score
and fifteen. and think of the number OF
things he had to do, too. While we, who
on the average cannot expect more than
80 years of life, must count off 10 years
for sleep. No wonder that Kant said,
What is the use of trying to prolong life
if one-third of it must be spent in sieep!''
| and advised early rising and late going to
bed. He himself cut down his toll Of
S.n fs.-r.t \, lac. IK,t nr,ly-
men of exceptional brain vigor that can do
that. Napoleon could do it. Humboldt,
Goethe Mirabeau, Schiller. Frederick the
! Great-these averaged from four to five
hours. Pichegru has recorded that in one
of his campaigns he slept only one hour
ont of every "a, but it is believed that
he lied: and on the face of it it is not
likely that he could break record made
by Napoleon. All exceptions aside, how
ever, the great mass Of the race has been
held to its one-third. and has given it up
meekly and put it down to profit and loss.
Right here modern science steps in and
plunges to the root of the matter with
these questions: Is sleep a vital neces-
sity? Why should the sleeve of care be
raveled out? If we could prevent the
| sleeve from raveling, could we not do
away with sleep altogether? And to this
last question science is strongly inclined to
| answer yes. Sleep, she tells us, is a pro-
! uuCI tVOlUIlO0. ne lowest IOrHS OF
| life do not sleep. The lowest forms Of
conscious life require the most sleep. Then
| as we rise in the scale OF consciousness,
| sleep is normally less and less necessary.
So long as we are liable to the fatigue of
consciousness we shall have to sleep; but
fatigue itself is in course of evolution. 1t
results from the limited capacity of our
| organization to receive and respond to i'm
pressions from the outside world. and that
capacity is limited by our lack of develop
ment. a baby, savage, person of feeble
mind, can receive only a few impressions
and requires farge amount of sleep; while
Napoleon, with his enormous expenditure
Of energy, needed correspondingly little re-
pose. Science, therefore, holds out the
prospect to US, that when we shall have
developed power Of consciousness as su-
perior to Napoleon's as Napoleon's was to
Digger Indian's-say in a few hundred
thousand years-we shall have no further
need for sleep, ergo, sleep will cease to
exist
Meantime the worlds men of energy
have looked on sleep with the scientists
eye, not the poets or dreamer's. 'Plow
deep while sluggards Sleep" was DIR.
Franklin's advice. Button gave his valet
a crown day to get him up before 6 in
the morning. Sir Thomas More repre-
sented the inhabitants of Utopia as going
to lectures before sunrise. Great military
short sleep periods-Chnrles VII, Of Swe-
den. and the Duke of Wellington, for ex-
| ample. These facts, among Others have
tended to discredit the idea that sleep is
"chief nourisher at life's feast" At pres
ent the authorities are divided on the ques-
tion whether the waste of tissue caused
by action is repaired during sleep, but the
weight of evidence seems to be on the
negative side. On the affirmative, one the
ory is that in action the organs of the
body are unable to nourish themselves; so
that in time Of waking the blood per-
forms circulation of function" and dur
| ing sleep circulation of nutrition" But
this theory is vigorously opposed. Sleep,
| say the modern men, is simply a state of
the brain; it has nothing to do with the
chemical process Of nutrition: while as to
the repose of the organs of the body, it is
to be observed that all these go on working,
or may do so, during sleep-with the pos
sible exception of certain centers of the
brain, and it is not proved that even these
have not 24-hour working-day
The cause of sleep is as yet unknown.
But at least the old theory has been dis
proved that it was due to congestion OF
blood in the vessels of the brain. 1t. has
been shown by observation Of the brains
of people and beasts during sleep that the
brain grows pale and contracts in propor-
tion to the depths of the sleep. The earli-
| est demonstration of this anaemia of the
brain during sleep seems to have been fur
nished by one Douders, who, in 1854, tre-
panned the skull of n dog and inserted a
watch glass, through which he could OBJ
| serve the animals BRAIN Observations