SLEEP.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 11 May 1912, Page 10

SLEEP.

All the organs of life rest in some way or other. The heart has an interval of rest between each combined act of contraction and expansion and the beginning of a fresh act. Between each expiration of the lungs and the succeeding inspiration there is.a period of repose. Physiologists have calculated that the heart reposes during about one-fourth of the time.

Certain of the other organs suspend their activity in part during sleep. Old physiologists supposed that sleep was caused by the pressure of the blood on the brain. But modern physiology, with a tendency to regard the brain as the origin of all force and of all functions of the body, inclines to the view that sleet) is caused by a withdrawal oi blood from the brain.

As a rule, the larger the brain the more sleep it requires. A curious trait has marked men of large brain—that of sleeping at will. Bonaparte used to throw himself on the ground and go to sleep within a space of two minutes. Pitt was a sound sleeper, and slept night after night in the House of Commons while his colleagues watched the debate and roused him when it was necessary that he should speak.