Notes on Insomnia.

Otago Witness, Issue 1890, 10 February 1888, Page 35

Notes on Insomnia.

What pleases me, when I am tormented with sleeplessness, is a little health book of my own, in which I have noted down a few —a very few— of the " infallible remedies" for sleeplessness which, had been tried in thousands— or perhaps it was millions of cases, most of which were in the prescribes' own immediate family, or, at the farthest, circle of intimate friends, and have never once failed to effect a permanent, and it is

needless to say, instant cure. All of these cases collective and each one by itself individually were and was exactly like ray own in cause, duration, and operation. The simplicity of the combined remedy appeals at once to human confidence —

Eat nothing within three hours before retiring. Eat a light but substantial luncheon just before going to bed. Nature abhors a vacuum. (This is one of the prescriptions I like.) Read light literature before going to bed. Read nothing after supper. Walk a mile in the open air just before bedtime. Go to your room an hour before and read until bedtime. Give up smoking altogether. If you are a smoker, a cigar just before retiring will soothe and tranquilise your nerves until you can't keep awake.

Don't think about sleeping; you scare away slumber by wooing the drowsy god. Resolutely resolve as you lie down that you will go to sleep, and sleep will come naturally. Take a warm bath, and go from the tub into bed.

Take a cold sponge bath, jump into bed, and you'll be asleep before your head touches the pillow. Walk slowly about your room half an hour.

Lie on your right side, with your cheek on your hand. Lie on your left side with your head resting on your arm. Count up to a thousand. (T tried this inhuman bit of idiocy one nighfc. I came very near falling asleep two or three times, but was startled wide-awake by suddenly becoming conscious that I had lost my count, and had to begin over again. This cure kept me awake one whole night, when I was so sleepy I could scarcely hold my eyes open. The friend who gave me the prescription is not living now. She was a woman, and I could not, as a gentleman, offer her violence. So I dosed a box of marsh-mallows with rough on rats, and sent them to her).

Drink milk. (This, according to my experience, is the best prescription in the lot. It will make you sleep better than all the bromides going, which are snares and delusions. But milk diet not only makes you sleep at night, but you want to sleep all the next day. It makes you intolerably stupid all the time. 11 ts «i very pleasant, half-awake feeling, if you have nothing else to do but to enjoy falling to sleep at any time and in all manner of places, like Colville in the best-told story of these times, "Indian Snmmer"; but if you have any work to do it is embarrassing.)

So, what is a sleepless man who wants to sleep going to do? If he eats a light luncheon, smokes a mild cigar, reads.Bunner an hour, walks a mile in the open air, comes back and walks another mile about his room, takes a sponge bath, cold, followed by a tub bath, warm, drinks a pint of milk, jumps into bed and lies on both sides, with his head on one arm and one hand, and counts a thousand, it will be time to get up, anyhow, and he can have a few nervous fits during the day. It is a fact, however, that even men who think they suffer from sleeplessness do not lie awake half so long as they imagine they do. When a man says to me, " I did not close my eyes once all nighfc," I know he lies. Not intentionally, of course ; he thinks he was awake all night ; the probability is that he did not get to sleep until two hours after his regular time, and it seemed an age j to him. Really, it isn't often that a man lies | awake the whole night through. lam not a physician, and cannot speak by the book, but I believe that men fib about their sleepless nights more than any other ill to which our weak humanity is heir. Now, take your own case ; you remember the last time you lay awake all night, don't you ? Yes, I see you do. Well, don't you remember that same night you heard the clock strike two, and then the next time you heard it, it struck seven 1 Yes, I see you do. Well, that's one of the mysteries about insomnia that is difficult to explain. — Robert J. Bardetfce. Officious. — "Better keep you head in the car," said the conductor as he passed through a railway carriage and saw an old man with his head thrust out. It was slowly drawn in and the owner turned to a man on the seat behind and asked : " What harm does it do to put my head out ? " " You might knock some of the telegraph poles down." " Oh, that's it! Well, if they are so mighty 'fraid of a few old poles I'll keep my head in. That's the way on the railroads since that new law went into effect."

Showing Her the Door.— Thomas had been a carpenter ; but, owing to dulness in trade, he "engaged as footman in the " big hoose" in the village. On the day of his engagement, his mistress, having a lady visitor in the drawing room, rang the bell for the footman. " You will show this lady to the front door, Thomas," she said.

" Yes, mem," replied Thomas, and, bowing to the lady, he requested her to follow him. On coming to the door, Thomas opened it, and the lady was about to pass out, when Thomas, tapping her on the shoulder, remarked: "This is the door, mem; good pitch pine in't, framed twa and a half inches thick with raised mouldings ; wad cost about twa-pound ten, mem."

Sqtjabe, Round, or Long ?— Many funny stories have been told of the difficulties encountered by Frenchmen in trying to master the English language. Here are some new ones : A Frenchman, M. Dubois, in conversation with Mr Brown, an Englishman, says : "I am going to leave my hotel. I paid my bill yesterday, and I said to the landlord, •Do I owe you anything else?' He said, ♦ You are square.' 'What am I?' He said again, 'You are square.' 'That's strange,' said I, ' I lived so long I never knew I was square before.' Then as I was going away he shook me by the hand, saying, ' I hope you'll be round soon.' I said ' I thought you said I was square. Now you hope I will be round.' He laughed and said, ' When I tell you you'll be round, I mean you won't; be long.' I did not know how many forms he wished me to assume, however, I was glad he did not call me a flat."