SLEEP AND HOW TO SECURE IT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 195, 22 December 1876, Page 14

SLEEP AND HOW TO SECURE IT.

Mk. Fbank Bitckland, in a recent article on this subject in • Land and Water/ takes the ground that it is natural for man, like other animals, to sleep soon after eating : The human frame cannot do without sleep. I believe the reason 18 that the mysterious property— for want of a better name we call it "vital energy "—gradually leaks out during the day. During sleep, the machinery of the body, especially the brain, becomes recharged ■with it. The cause of not being able to sleep— l write now of people in good health, and hard workers with their brains— is that the brain cannot, so to speak, "go down," but it continues to act, more or less. My father, when writing the Bridgewater Treatise, had his own way of working. He was an excessively busy man during the day, and had only the night hours in which he could write. He generally dined at seven o'clock, and immediately after dinner went to sleep for two or three hours. He then got up, and worked on till two or three in the morning. Just before retiring to rest, he took some light pudding, or a sandwich, with cocoa or milk. Thus he always slept well, as the blood was diverted from the brain to tie stomach. I have no hesitation in saying that the proper thing to do is to sleep immediately (or at least very soon) after the meal of the day. All animals also go to sleep, if they are not disturbed, after eating. -This is especially noticeable in dogs ; and the great John Hunter Bbowed by an experiment that digestion went on during sleep more than when the animal was awake and going about. This is his exf eriment : He took two dogs and gave them both the same quantity of food. One of them was then allowed to go to sleep, and the other was taken out hunting. At the end of three or four hours he killed both these dogs. The food in the stomach of the dog which lad been asleep was quite digested ; in that of the one which had been hunting, the food was not digested at all. I recollect the late Dr. Wilberforce, then Bishop of Oxford, telling my father, then most actively engaged as Dean of Westminster, of his patent way of going to sleep. It is better than the old fashioned prescription of watching sheep jumping through a ledge one after another, ships sailing out to sea, &c. The Bishop's prescription was to repeat very slowly the vowels a, c, i, o, v. In doing this they were to be taintly pronounced with each inspiration and expiration. It will be found easy to do this without moving the lips, but the vowel v must not be pronounced, for to do this the muscular action of the lips necessarily takes place, and sleep comes not. I advise my readers to try thiß plan. I now venture to suggest a new but simple remedy for want of sleep. Opiates in any form, even the Liquor opii sedat, and chlorodyne, will leave traces of their influence tie next morning. I therefore prescribe for myself, and have frequently done so for others — onions ; simply common onions raw, but Spanish onions stewed will do. Everybody knows the taste of onions j this is due to a peculiar essential oil contained in thiß most valuable and healthy root. This oil has, I am sure, highly soporific powers. In my own case they never fail. If lam much pressed with work, and feel I should not sleep, I eat two or three small onions, and the effect is magical. Onions are also excellent things to eat when much exposed to intense cold. Mr. Parnaby, Troutdale Fishery, Keswick, informs me that when collecting salmon and trout eggs in the winter, le finds that common raw onions enable him and his men to bear the ice and cold of the semi-frozen water much better than spirits, beer, &c. The Arctic Expedition, just now about to start, should therefore take a good stock of onious. Finally, if a person cannot sleep, it is because the blood is in his brain, not in his stomach. This is to be done by eating a biscuit, a hard boiled egg, a bit of bread and cheese, or something. Follow this up with a glass of milk, or water, and you will fall asleep.

The Republican managers find that their canvass in this State is going to he up-hill work throughout. The people can't be argued out of the fact that under Tilden their taxes last year reduced about eight millions, and that for the current year they are to be still further reduced by $5,677,506 29. It is hard to meet that argument, or to divert attention from the facts by any manner of talk. The people like to see the practical results of reform and wise administration, and those Governor Tilden has given them. The Republicans must devote their time to excusing their past delinquencies, and trying to deceive the voters into believing that they are the ones to correct the evils that they have themselves imposed on the Government State and national. This is something that level-headed men refuse to swallow. They will vote for the man and party who actually gave them reform, not for those who rendered the work of reform necessary. — *N. T. Sun.' On the 12th of April, 1861, Montalembert wrote to Cavour the f ollowing lines : " You may become masters of Eome as were the barbarians and the persecutors from AUvric to Napoleon 1., but you ■will never be in it as sovereigns or equals of the Pope. Pxus IX. may perhaps be your prisoner, even your victim, but he will never be your accomplice." How true was the prediction, the present state of affairs in Italy is all sufficient to demonstrate.