SLUMBER POISONS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 19, 23 January 1926, Page 16

SLUMBER POISONS

SLEEP ONLY A FORM OF INTOXICATION.

A theory that sleep may be nothing more than intoxication, and that by cultivating better habits humanity may lessen the hours so spent, was advanced by George Washington University scientists who conducted a recent test on eight students recently, says the ''New York Times". The finding was tentative and the research work will be continued, but meanwhile the scientists say that if the results pointed to any one theory of sleep it was that of natural intoxication, caused by the storing of poißons in the human system during the wakeful hours.

When the drunkard becomes intoxicated, they said, he sleeps, sind generally wakes up detoxified. In the case of the students, microscopical examination showed their blood changes corresponded to those of a drunken man, and that their trouble was cured by a short period of sleep. The students were kept awake for sixty hours, It was found that insomnia played havoc with ?che visual senses, phantoms being reported by some, and various distortions of ob* jects by otherß. A single night's loss of sleep did not affect the ability of the subjects to drive an automobile, but they became rather dangerous drivers on the second nifjht. This was explained as due to their tendency to drop off to sleep while listening to the rhythm of the motor. Their mental faculties and muscles remained up to standard.

It is quite possible, tho scientists gaid, that through force of habit ono person is able to obtain 100 units of sleep in half the time required by others.

"In short," they said, "sleep has not only length but depth." If this assumption be true, the length of time that people sleep is very largely a question of habit. It might be possible to cause their sleeping mechanisms to work faster, just as by a ser-ies-of condition reflexes we can make the salivary glands work faster."