NARCOTICS AND SLEEP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 30 September 1907, Page 1

NARCOTICS AND SLEEP.

I ami in thu habit of ndvisijig persons sulTering from neurasthenia, accompanied as it gunerully is by insomnia, in these terms: Hay to yourself as you go to b L -;l: "I don't care a fig uethiher I sleep or, not; if 1 sleep, w/tll, if I <io not sleop also well, though not so 1 well." This formula often works like magic." 1 know thai in offering it free to my readers, I am guilty of 'folly. Were I to follow tho prevailing example, I woul.l open, a hall, an<J teach it in six lessons, chargviaig a sovereign a lesson. Then t/hc work! would believe it. sleepless nights on this planet would be fewer, an-J 1 would be richer. Nevertheless the wiso renders will forgive my want oi worldly prmltnee for the snke of the blessing that may bo bis without money and without, price. Let 1 me \-arnfStly urge sufferers from insomnia •( except in ens.-s - whei'e It is thu result of' organic disease or acute pffin), to follow Macbeth's a ( d\ ice and "thfow physic to ho dogs"; metaphorically, of course elso the dogt will suffer. Chloral, opium, trional, puraldi'liydc-, silphonal, and other narcotics drug or intoxicate) the brain, but really war against. normal sleep, as is seen from the. fact that opiunr- and morphine maniacs (gradually l<*>e all pow-er of falling- asleep naturally.