The Welfare of the Blind-And How They Sleep

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17607, 24 October 1931, Page 9

The Welfare of the BlindAnd How They Sleep

LONDON', July 10. £ APT AIN Inn Fraser, the blind oxM.P., whoso work for his fellow sufferers is .so well known, writing in the Sunday Express, says:— “Many blind people do not sleep very well, mid I share this experience, particularly when I am overworked. This may be to some extent a physical phenomenon, for though my daily round does not differ very much from that of any other sedentary worker, I probably move about less quickly, and walk less far to arid from the ,offi6e and about .the place than one who can see arid who is engaged in precisely the' same activities.

“But it is also, I am sure, partly a, matter of the mind. There is something restful arid suggestive Of sleep about, the act of closing the eyes or turning off the light, A stimulus lo the mind is removed, and partly by habit, partly by suggestion, the mind composes itself lo sleep. The sighted are accustomed to thinking and living with their eyes .open. “The moment tlieir eyes are shut.

to the age of this new city is a Strange one,” he confessed. I have found statuettes, about LSiri. high, buried in the ground when I dug among the ruins. Now do not forget that they were granite. But when I touched them, 1 found that parts of them had become as soft as toothpaste; that they had turned to clay. A geologist could tell you more about their age than I can.” There are other strange things about this ancient city, as Mr. MitchellHedges confessed. There are great limestone caves tinder and around the city. Many of them have, of course;, been tilled by earthquake subsidences',but many are still left. And thosh* have man-cut shafts, going down into their blackness from what formerly was the great city. “No, 1 hav6 riot been down one of them,'’.' the explorer admitted. “But 1 shall bo down next January. They may just be storage chambers for grain and so forth—but they may be something better, too. I am in hope that I shall find burial .vaults there.. And if I do, why wO shall know something about this people before I have done.” ’ liii':’

or the light is turned out, they lose their usual landmarks arid cease to be interested in a world which has disappeared. When, therefore there is no unusual worry or cause for wakefulness, sleep comes easily and quickly. “With the blind man this change is absent. There is' no shutting off of the w.orld outside to induce sleep. He has got to wait for his mind's eye to close up—until it. does so of its own accord. It cannot be encouraged; it is not open to persuasion. Those- sighted people who have failed to respond to the suggestion to' sleep which is made when the light is put out, and find themselves thinking and worrying and perhaps counting sheep, will know what I mean. “ I do not think blindness change's a man’s character or outlook upori life very much. It is sometimes supposed that the blind are Suspicious because they never can be quite sure what is going on around them.' Unhappily the majority of blind people are poor. “Despite the fact 'that a gridd deal of help is afforded tliciti. i'ri these, times by comparison with a gfca'eration ago, they have' to look but fori themselves, and worry and scheme, amt tliis may make them appear to call the world in question. But 1 think that their misgivings arise more because of their surroundings and their difficulties than because of their blindness.

“On the whole. I should say that,' blindness in itsrilf: does not induce anJ abnormal Outlook on life. A blind man sees what he wants to see His . outlook is happy if he is happy “The great tiling to (Ibis not to. grieve too much about hi my never to j grieve to him, but to give him an j opportunity ,of interesting himself in the things that interest everybody”;