SLEEP.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16712, 30 January 1926, Page 4

SLEEP.

Many people are aware, in these days, of the soporific effect of hot weather. But why a rise in the temperature should induce to drowsiness remains something of a mystery, and it is lust as true that in cold weather 'sleep is also near at hand. Thus it would seem that Nature is able to shield herself against an uncongenial environment by the simple process of shutting her eyes to it. That idea was propounded recently, in scientific form, by the Russian physiologist, Pavlov. He carried out on dogs a number of experiments of a highly interesting and diverting character. The animals were accustomed, in the first instance, to associate certain sounds with the approach of meal time. When a gong was struck or a bell was rung they knew that food was on the way. Then, one day, a change was instituted. Tiie gong was struck as usual and the bell was rung; but the coming of the expected food was delayed. The disappointed animals immediately fell asleep. Further, it was found that sleep could always be induced by inflicting such disappointments on appetite. It is, perhaps, permissible to argue from this that the act of falling asleep expresses resignation in face of circumstances which are too difficult or too distressing to be coped with. The tired man flings himself on his couch because no longer can he respond to the calls made on him by his surroundings. And thus, by the very act of surrender, he gathers new force to continue the struggle. Sleep, from this point of view, is a kind of "shamming dead" —the resort of the weak and the disappointed in the face of inexorable circumstance. How far that conception can be reconciled with more ordinary opinions it is difficult to say. A few years ago Sir Frederick Mott brought forward evidence that the brain which has been deprived, for long periods, of sleep loses from its cells a substance necessary to vital activity. Sleep alone is capable of effecting a restoration of that substance. It might, perhaps, be argued from this that the most'active brains require the longest periods of sleep, but history furnishes -many examples to the contrary. The Emperor Napoleon, for example, was notoriously a "short sleeper." He was capable of doing without sleep altogether for nights in succession, and his normal habit was to sleep only during two hours at a time. Thus his nights were always "broken." His case is not an isolated one. Very active minds seem to resent the "natural penalty" of sleep" and contrive, in some cases at any rate, to mitigate it to the extent of two or three hours below what physicians are wont to describe as the minimum consistent with good health. Dull brains, on the contrary, are often sleepy brains. In this, as in so many other matters, what is one man's' meat seems to be another man's poison.