Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1905-08-11
Boiled Spinach,

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 ra n and tees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and
seas;
Smooth fields; white sheets of water, and
1 have thought of all by turns and yet to
lie
sleepless. and soon the small birds melo-
dies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard
trees,
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night and two nights
more / lay
And could not win thee. Sleep, by any
stealth.
So do not let me wear tonight away
Without thee what is all the mornings
Come, blessed barrier between day and
day
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joy
Gus health.
The poet has evidently adopted the
theory that insomnia and its cure are
metaphysical, that sleeplessness results
from a perverted train of thought and
that the cure for 1t is to pry the mind
out of it's rut by thinking of something
else.
That his is the philosophy OF most
cases OF insomnia is manifest from the
single fact that as o as q sleeplesS
person gives up trying to sleep he be-
comes overpoweringly sleepy. Ii is re-
lated as a great joke that a victim of
insomnia complained that he had it SO
bad that he could not even sleep when
1t was time to get up"
This is laughable, but ii is neverthe-
less a serious matter. 1t shows that
In the great majority of cases insomnia
is the result OF permitting the mind
TO get into certain states. the worst or
which is a purpose to fall asleep, and
that the cure for it is to get rid of that
mental habit.
When a sleepless person cannot even
go to sleep when ii is time to get up"
it proves that the OF his insom-
mia is not metaphysical. Some spicula
of Dor may be pricking a nerve, or
some diseased organ may be torturing
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 that 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.
M~illspaugh's large and magnificently
Illustrated volume on Medical Plants"
which treats Of the medical properties
of innumerable vegetables, plants and,
nuts hat 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. :
1t is absurd to say that all persons
will be affected in a certain way by one
particular food or drug. The human
constitution exhibits many startling
idiosyncrasies. There are people who
can eat calomel by the handful without
any effect and there have been nom
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 four 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 II produces his 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.