SLEEPLESSNESS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 7488, 28 May 1885, Page 4

SLEEPLESSNESS.

Sleep is a perfectly natural function. It is not a negative act, but a positive process. Herein lies the difference between real sleep and the poison-induced torpor which mimics the state of physiological rest. We ought to be able to sleep at will* Napoleon and many busy men—the late Mr Wakley for example—developed the power of self-in-duced sleep to such an extent as to be able to rest whenever and wherever they pleased, for longer or shorter periods, as the conditions admitted. We have been led to believe that Mr Gladstone at one time possessed this faculty. If that be so, his recent insomnia must be assumed to have been the result of such intense brain-worry as inhibited the control of the will; or there may, of course, be physical causes which render the apparatus of the cerebral blood-supply less manageable by the nerve centres. In any case, it is much to be deplored that, in the study and treatment of insomnia, the profession generally does Hot more clearly and constantly keep in memory that what we call sleeplessness is really wakefulness, and that before it is justifiable to resort to the use of stupefying drugs the precise cause of disturbance should be clearly made out. This, of course, takes time, and involves a scientific testing of the relative excitabilities of the sense-organs, central or radial and peripheral. The discovery of the cause, however, affords ample recompense for the trouble of searching for it. With the sphygmograph and a few test appliances, such as Galton'a whistle, an optometer, and other instruments, the recognition of the form and cause of sleeplessness can be made in a brief space, and then, and then only we protest, it can be scientifically—i.e., physiologicallytreated.—Lancet,