"SORE LABOUR'S BATH"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1934, Page 8

"SORE LABOUR'S BATH"

Some comforting statements regarding sleep and sleeplessness were made by Lord Horder in an address to the British. Medical Association. The cable summary published yesterday reported this eminent medical authority as advising a sleep at midday if one felt like it. Still more comforting, to those who do not sleep well, was the statement that excess, of brain-work was a cause of sleeplessness;, but Lord Horder later withdrew this consolation by stating that he did not believe brain-work in intellectual people caused sleeplessness if they worked under good physical conditions. This presents a difficulty. Can one plead brain-fag when told that the intellectual people, do not suffer from it? Is it not inviting the sarcastic comment that the exercise has been disturbing because one is not accustomed to it? Again Lord Horder said that remorse, fear, love, joy, sorrow, and anger were the main causes of sleeplessness. Yet Shakespeare made Macbeth praise

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave

of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath.

Evidently, if Lord Holder is right, it is care that must knit up the ravell'd sleave of sleep. Dickens did not agree with Shakespeare that the innocent mind was essential ) for sleep. The burning desire of the Fat Boy in "Pickwick" was to make people's flesh creep; but "Damn that, boy, he's gone to sleep again," said' Mr. Wardle. , ' ■,