The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-20

or Into Dozes Which May Last fo,
 Weeks
 Reference to the long sleep of Frank
 lin Strong. of Aberdeen Miss, made in
 the Sun last Sunday, brings to notice
 the case of w H. Stibbings, of San Di-
 ego, Cal.
 He goes to sleep despite the efforts of "a corps of physicians and nurses to
 keep him awake, and except for the en-
 forced Interruptions when he is aroused
 by the most heroic means imaginable to
 partake of food, he sleeps on and on,
 day and night, week in and week out.
 Stibbings, between the periods of his
 Hong sleeps'' is strong, healthy man,
 of athletic build and habits. He has an
 unusually robust physique, leads an ex-
 ceptionally actice life, eats regularly to
 satiswy a keen appetite and sleeps no
 longer than the ordinary, mortal who
 finds rest and refreshment from bodily
 fatigue in six, eight or ten hours night
 ly S lumber. He is only twenty nine
 years old now, has never been married
 knows no cares of any sort and is proud Z VI lIC LoOt tiln ilt llSNSl bSCll III III
 his life. He makes his living by drlv-
 ing a pair of fine young horses, which
 keeps him constantly in the open air,
 and having worked for fourteen years
 for the same firm, has won an enviable
 reputation for honesty, faithfulness and
 sobriety.
 And yet he will indulge in his long
 sleeps without warning. He has had three during the past year. At the
 most unexpected moments he will drop
 off peacefully into a quiet slumber and apparently would sleep on forever if left undisturbed. Time or circumstance make no difference in his strange hab- it. When the desire to sleep comes over him he is powerless to resist 1t. He even lacks the will to give warning that he is about to launch himself into a
 Hong sleep" and without so much as tNow I lay me down. etc., he gently closes his eyes and slumbers. It doesn't really matter to him during these moods what time of the day or night it Is, nor yet where he may chance to be at the precise moment when he gets that tired feeling. Rain or shine, he sleeps just the same.
 Of course he has to be awakened by main force at regular intervals to be fed, but it is not such an easy task as it might seem. It requires the most wig orous efforts of a strong man to shake him into semi mi-consciousness, in which state he eats drowsily, dreamily, oft times protestingly, and then relapses again with a sigh of relief into the ob- livion of his Hong sleep"
 Tn his first nap a year ago, he slept fourteen days, the only Interruption be- ing when he was aroused to partake of When attacked by the mysterious trouble Stibbings was on a five-mile trip to the suburbs with a load of merchandise. After driving two miles he commenced to feel drowsy, and before he had proceeded another mile he lost himself entirely. He remem bers nothing of what happened until he found himself in a bed day or two af- ter. He was told that he had delivered his load of goods and returned his wag- on to the yards all right. , The case baff1ed the physicians. Stib- pings had felt rather poorly before the | sleepy period came upon him, and had | been dosing for liver trouble. At the | end of the fourteen days he came out of | the esleep greatly emaciated, weak and | with terrible pains in the head, all though he rallied quickly and was soon | pack at work again.
 q didn't know anything at all during he first two days of my first sleep he ,aid, "but after that I knew all that vas going on every day that I slept. In act, strange as 1t may seem, though I vas sleeping steadily for two weeks, I vas wide awake for the usual number # hours every day that I should have ,iven to my regular round of work and pleasure if I had not been taking my long sleep. I couldn't move or open ny eyes, but I knew everything that vas going on around me. l knew when they wanted me to wake up and ake nourishment, but I couldn't raise
 finger to help them feed me. I ouldnt speak, either, and if they had yanted to starve me I could not have ttered a syllable in protest.
 Though I couldn't open my eyes to ee them. I could hear all that was be- ng said about my singular case. 1 ,as perfectly conscious of what they yere doing when they shaved my head , find some bruise or other that might nlighten them as to the cause of my trange malady, but I couldn't tell nem what was the matter with me. It -as not the clear consciousness of my taking moments, but it all came back , me afterward like the dim memory something that happened in the long . go. I cannot account for it, except rat it is sort of sub-consciousness. all seems like a dream at times" , he second and third attacks were sim ar to the first, only shorter, the second Lsting three days, and the third, from hich he has just awakened, five days. r At each of the awakenings he was a eek and his head full of pain. Indeed, + 9 suffered the most eXcruciating agony ( these moments, such agony as makes q nending sleep preferable Stibbings f lys that when he was eleven years h d he was kicked in the head by a n 1rse Whether this is the cause of the h ouble he is unable to say, but he h nows of nothing else. The kick was f. l the right side of the head, and this " the side which aches the worst when Q wakes from his long maps, a Stibbings physician, Dr. J. c. Hearne, c TVS that the kick in the head is un- r; ,ubtedly the cause of the trouble, the ncussion having brought about this is ,culiar condition of the nerve forces, n here appears to be nothing that can sl