The National tribune., 1902-07-17

the Russian peasant is to crawl up on his
stove and go to bed Immediately after
supper.
II the organs Of the body cannot be said
| to sleep, neither can the voluntary muscles.
Witness the phenomena Of sieep-walking;
| the postillions in stage-coach days who
| slept in their saddles. and cavalrymen who
| do it today: infantry who have been
| known to sleep on forced marches: senti-
nels who walk their beats. carrying their
guns in n fixed position. while they sleep.
| For all we know. policemen may do 1t, too.
| People who talk in their sleep are familiar
| to all of us. Experiments made by Speir.
Armstrong and Child on 300 college stu
dents of both sexes showed that Al per
| cent. of the men. nd 81 per cent. of the
women talked in their sleep.
| Evidently. then. with the muscles and
| organs of the body all working. it is the
| brain only that sleeps, and by no means
| all OF the brain. The senses of sight.
hearing, touch. smell and taste may he
| very much awake while the subject sleeps.
A sleeping person hears and answers ques-
| tons, rearranscs his bed clothing, covers
| his eyes to keep out light. draws away his
| hand when the cxpcrimenter tickies it. y
| child is broken of the habit OF sucking his
thumb while asleep by putting aloes on it.
| He is conscious of the bitter taste and
| dreams of wormwood. The nerves. then,
| and the brain centers corresponding to
them, are awake. A busy lawyer. ex-
hausted by over-work, one night went ont
| to supper with some friends. ate, talked
| and walked with them, and the next day
| remembered absolutely nothing of the oc-
| currence. He had not been drinking; the
| man was simply asleep during the whole
| evening. His conscious memOry-that is,
| consciousness itSelf-sept.
| The rcpOSe of cOnsciousness-that is the
| definition on which most students now
seem to agree. as they agree also that the
reason of sleep is fatigue of attention.
| 4 long sermon, strenuous curtain lee
| ture, the talk of a person who bores us
these fatigue our attention and bring on
an exposition of sleep. But attention itself
| does not sleep. 1t if did, persons could not
| awake Mt an hour fixed beforehand. Il
power which many have. Nurses frequent
| ly are able to wake at regular intervals to
give medicine, sleeping soundly between
| times.
In all such cases attention is awake. and
sleep under such conditions, it is said. can
not he sound and refreshing. The strong
est brain feels such strain. 1t has been
observed, in evidence OF the mental en-
| ergy so expended, that persons Of feeble
understanding cannot wake at q fixed hour.
OF the 200 college students referred to
| above, 80 per cent. could wake at fixed
hour-J1 per cent of the women and 62
| per cent. of the men.
Waking suddenly of ones own voition,
| however. has not the bad results that
| come of being walked suddenly out of
sound sleep. We all know those extremely
| unpleasant sensations.
| Many people sleep too much. They cul-
tivate anaemia of the brain. Excessive
/ sleep weakens consciousness, from lack of
exercise; nutrition is disturbed, and the
various organs Of the body are enfeebled
by inactivity. Sleep carried to this point
becomes q disease. called hypnosis"
.i | which in chronic. death Tho
victim may sleep for weeks and even
months at time, with less and less fire.
quent intervals of consciousness, until con-
vulsions and death result. An,indication
of incipient hypnosis is the persistent droop-
ing of the upper eyelid. \ person who has
any tendency to excessive sleep should use
his brain as much as possible. Any sort of
excitement is good for him, either JOY or
rage, for both send blood to the brain. If
he feels anger he ought, say the physi-
ologists, to give way to it. His family
may suffer, but he will be benefited. He
should also take tea, coffee and all the
| amusement he can get. The converse Of
this prescription. of course, applies to peo-
pie who have a tendency to insomnia. For
their benefit the old idea that 'monotony
| fatigues consciousness and so brings on
| sleep, ought to be enlarged upon. When
| there is no monotonGus sound naturally at
| hand-the murmur of river or distant
| or n swarm Of bees at little distance, or
| even the ticking of a clock. \ heated
church and dull sermon are said never
to fail. Boehaaye had an arrangement Of
water dropping on a brass pan for one of
| his sleepless patients. But George Ill
low of hops. Lettuce, it is well known,
has soporific effect. The heat of the
| summer sun, we all know, induces drowsi-
ness, and equally familiar, if not by ex
perience at least in story, is the effect Of
| intense cold.
But if sleep in some cases may cause
death, lack of sleep is sure to do so. A
person absolutely without sleep for nine
days will die. Sufferers from insomnia
| sometimes maintain that they have gone
for weeks without sleeping, but it has
been proved that they do sleep without
being aware of it. At certain point
sleep is inevitable. no matter what the
death. Prisoners have slept on the rack
of the Inquisiton. And the Chinese found
that only the greatest ingenuity and vigi-
lance could carry out sentence of death
by sleeplessness. This mode of capital
punishment was long in favor in China,
and is said to be so today; while as form
of torture, deprivation of sleep is consid
cred one of the most efficacious weapons
in the Chinese judicial arsenal. In some
such cases the prisoner is kept in a cage
too small to stand up or lie down in, and
constantly prodded with a sharp rod.
Death by starvation, also Chinese puni
tive method, is slower process, and
therefore, one would think, more calcu-
lated to appeal to the Oriental mind, if it
We're not that death by sleeplessness is
thought so much more painful. In the lat
ter case the brain is the first affected of
all the organs of the body; while in case
of starvation, the brain longest retains its
normal weight and character.
A corresponding mode of tanning wild
elephants is said TO be depriving the ami
mails of sleep when first caught. In a few
days they become comparatively spiritless
and harmless The brain of the elephant
is held to be more highly developed than
that of any other wild animal, but of
course, as-compared with human brain,
can be easily fatigued by new impressions,
and so made very dependent on sleep. The
wild elephant in his native jungle, how
ever, is said to sleep very littie-a further
point for the theory of the universal ratio
of sleep TO intelligence. A man taken out
Of his habitat and placed in conditions
which he never could have imagined-if
transported to Mars, say-would doubtless
need an extraordinary amount of sleep at
first. There is the almost parallel case of
a German boy, Casper Hauser, who up to
the age of IS was kept in one room where
he had no intercourse with human beings,
or sight Of any natural object, not even
the sky. At IS he was brought to Nurem-
berg and abandoned in the street. For the
first few months of his life among men he