The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-06-17

/ dose must be constantly increased.
Once the habit is gained, sleep becomes
| impossible without the aid of the drug,
| and the last state of the victim is vast
| ly worse THAI the first. Drugs, indeed,
are the curse of this day and genera
| ton. People are fed with them from
governed. as little medicine as possi-
BILE would be taken, the main reliance
being placed in Nature.
! Both alcohol and tobacco overstimu-
late the nerve-centres and render them
irritable, thus tending to cause sleep
lessness. Imprudences in diet have a
ike effect. There is too much late eat
ing and drinking. Fashionab BILE people,
after the play. go to a restaurant and
indulge in a hearty-and generally in
igestible-supper. At some balls now
Gdays there are two suppers, one early
and one late. Naturally, as a result
of such abL Sc, the digestive functions
are upset, the nervous system is forced
into an unwholesome activity and sleep
is made difficult.
At the midnight hour the cafes of n
big city are full of gay people eating
Holsters and salads, and washing them
down with champagne and burgundy.
Many Of them will not be able to sleep
without a dose of brandy before going
to bed. The next morning they wake
up With an inactive liver. a feeling of
lassitude, and a great desire for a
cocktail as a ''bracer." Nature will not
endure such abuse beyond a certain
point, and these people, who have such
a good time While it lasts, drift after
a few years into asylums and sani-
to riun1s
During slumber nothing is asleep ex-
cent the brain, and certain elements of
that organ appear still to remain awake
even in such circumstances. Marie de
Manaceine, a writer of high reputation
on this subject, speaks of the fact that
a sleeper will change his position when
ever he happens to be uncomfortable,
and, without waking, will assume an
easier posture. He will brush a fly off
his face, or draw up the bedclothes
which have left his person partly ex-
posed. These are rational acts. 1t is
an old story that soldiers frequently
sleep while on the march, and dam
gerous feats are sometimes performed
by somnambulists. /!
Not only does the body remain awake
during sleep, but it is beyond question
that the brain-centres connected with
seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting
retain their activities, to considerable
extent at all events-else how, in
dreams, should we have visual and
other sensory impressions? What is it,
then. that sleeps in the brain? The
spinal cord and nerves are awake, and
parts at least of the mind organ are
alert. Where are we to suppose that
the sleeper is located?
This is one of the most interesting
questions in all the domain of psychol-
ogy. Some day, in all likelihood. we
shall know a great deal more about
IS making special study of the phe-
1omena of sleep, and, for one point, it
s said to have been ascertained, as a
said to have been ascertained, as a
'esult of recent experiments, that the
deepest slumber is reached about an
1our and a quarter after one falls into
Inconsistencies. and that it diminishes
n soundness gradually from this time
IN.
YOUTH TALKS IN IT'S SLEEP.
When one sleeps, the heart slows
Town and beats more feeb1y. The skin,
N the other hand, acts more ener-
throwing off impurities
ooms becomes foul more rapidly than !
hat of iiving-rooms. Young people
ak more during sleep than do their
GERS study of two hundred college
tudents of both sexes, not long ago,
howed that forty per cent of them ]
fere more or less addicted to talking '
4 their sleep.
But the most important phenomenon {
with sleep is the outflow of '
lood from the brain, which seems to t
e not only an incident of slumber, but I
in certain sense, the cause
it. If we We're able to examine the, I
hind organ of human being under | t
lch conditions-as has been done in /
he case of a dog, by removing a piece S
the skull and replacing it with e
should see 1t grow /
ale ANA diminish in volume as slum- !
er fell upon the person under observa-
on.
Such being the case, it is evident /
nat in trying to cure insomnia. our q
|