TOO MUCH SLEEP.

Evening Star, Issue 11672, 3 February 1902, Page 1

TOO MUCH SLEEP.

c " The efficacy of sleep is so constantly dinned into our ears that I think it quite time," remarked a physician to a writer in ' Cassell's Saturday Journal,' " that the attention of the public was drawn to flie fact that over-indulgence in sleep can be highly injurious. A disposition to excess of sleep is a bad sign, and I may tell you that in numerous instances it is the precursor of brain trouble. It is not infrequently due to poison in the blood, and if you have a friend who is inclined to sleep much and often during the day vou should make him take medical advice. Lethargy should never be allowed to go unattended. There is always something wrong with the drowsy man, and to accuse him of wilful idleness, as people do, is the height of folly, for no matter how hard he may try he cannot really rouse himself of his own accord. His system is out of order. It wants bracing. It is a gre?it pity that the individual who is perpetually taking naps is set down as a sluggard before bis case is thoroughly inquired into. I recollect, being .called in to see a patient who was in a state of coma. She had just had an apoplectic fit, and had been sleeping off and on' for a whole week. Her friends looked upon her listlessness as the result of natural laziness, and never dreamed of consulting a doctor until she became insensible. Had they been possessed of more intelligence the poor woman's life might have been saved; as it was, she died."