Sleep.
Whatever feats of endurance men may accomplish they cannot live long without sleeping. The victim of the Chinese * waking torture ’ seldom survives more than ten days. Those condemned to die by the waking torture, which is infinitely worse than the death suffered by Kremmler, are given all they wish to eat and drink, but whenever they close their eyes they are jabbed with spears and sharp sticks until they awaken. There is no torture more horrible. Men sleep under every condition of bodily and mental suffering. Those condemned to die, even though they fear their fate, generally sleep the night before execution. Soldiers have been known to sleep when on a long and wearisome march while walking in the ranks, or lying on a bed of stones or in the mud and water. No one knows just what sleep is. The prevailing theory as to its nature is that of the physiologist, Preyer, who holds that refuse matter accumulates In the nervous centres in such quantity as to bring about insensibility. This insensibility is sleep, which continues until the brain has been relieved of this waste matter by its absorption into the circulation.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Mail, Issue 996, 3 April 1891, Page 9
Word Count
194Sleep. New Zealand Mail, Issue 996, 3 April 1891, Page 9
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