The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1905-08-10
Boiled Spinach.

III ooloQ 0PindGH.
There is nothing in the poems Of
Wordsworth more pathetic than the
following sonnet to Sleep:
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by
One after one; the sound Of ran and bees
Murmuring; the fall Of rivers. winds and
Smooth fields: white sheets of water. and
pure sky
I have thought of all by turns and yet to
%sleepless, and soon the small birds melo-
dies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night and two nights
more I lay
And could not win thee, Sleep, by any
Sc do not let me wear tonight away.
Without thee what is all the mornings
wealth?
Come. blessed barrier ctwee day and
lay
Dear mothe of fresh thoughts and joy
Gus health.
The poet has evidently adopted the
theory hat insomnia and it's cure are
metaphysical, that sleeplessness results
from a perverted train Of thought and
that the cure for it is to pry the mind
out of its rut by thinking of something
else.
That this is the philosophy of most
cases of insomnia Is manifest from the
single fact that as soon as a sleeplesS
person gives up trying to sleep he be-
m overpoWerlngly sleepy. 1t is re-
insomnia complained that he had it SO
bad" that he could not even sleep when
it was time to get up"
This is laughable, but it Is neverthe-
less a serious matter. 1t shows hat
in the great majority Of cases insomnia
is the result Of permitting the mind
to get int certain states. the worst Of
which is a purpose to fall asleep, II
that the cure for it is to get rid Of that
mental habit.
When a sleepless person cannot even,
go to sleep when it Is ''time to get up
it proves that the cause of his insom-
mia is not metaphysical. Some spicula
Of bone nay be pricking a nerve, or
some diseased rga may be t%orturing
it's adjacent nerve, or the brain Or
nerves themselves may be diseased and
representative, in that case there is no
use in thinking about sleep or rain or
bees. Help lies in the knife, the hyp-
motto drug or perhaps in hypnotic food.
This is where boiled spinach comes
in. 1t has been discovered hat boiled
spinach or boiled cabbage, either one,
is a remarkable temporary relief of many
ordinary cases Of insomnia, whether
metaphysical or physical.
This is not set down in the books.
Millspaugh's large and magnificently
illustrated volume on Medical Plants"
which treats of the medical properties
of innumerable vegetables, plants and
nuts that are regular articles of food,
has. nothing to say about spinach and
cabbage. The hypnotic reputation Of
these two popular vegetables is a mat
ter of tradition and of recent expert
ment.
will be affected in a certain way by one
particular 0 or drug. The human
constitution exhibits many startling
idiosyncrasies. There are people Who
can eat calomel by the handful without
any effect and there nave been non
h~abituated people who swallowed sixty
grains of morphine with perfect safety.
In like manner what is one mans food
may be another mans poison.
With this ample reservation there
can be no danger in saying that it is
claimed on reliable authority that
boiled spinach or boiled cabbage, even
eaten our or five hours before bed
time, is a powerful hypnotic, more apt
to produce uncomfortable results from
oversleeping than to fail in producing
sleep at all.
How It produces this effect is not
clear. 1t does not appear to disorder
any part Of the body and yet this is not
certain.
1t will do no victim of insomnia any
harm to try a diet of spinach or cab
bage for a while and it may do him a
world of good.