Sleep, or, The hygiene of the night / by W.W. Hall.

  • William Whitty Hall
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sleep, or, The hygiene of the night / by W.W. Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    usual strength; but that rest must be longer, each succeeding exhaustion requiring more time for recu- peration, until, eventually, the power of recuperation is lost. This is destructive excess, not only to the part itself, but to the whole system, because the malady spreads as naturally and as certainly as the fire in a burning building, and ceases not until the ruin is complete. If the brain is exercised too intense ly, whether in perplexing study, in incessant anxie- ties, or in the vortex of business, it soon begins at length to lose its elasticity, its power of concentra- tion, its continuity of thought, and the mind goes out in darkness, the body in death, or both body and mind together wilt and wither away. But even this condition of things is found in an unnatural state of the blood, brought about by the brain consuming more than its share of the nervous supplies; hence the stomach and other portions of the digestive apparatus have less than their share, perform their duties im- perfectly, and make an imperfect blood, bringing us again to the point arrived at before, to wit, that in the cure of all nervous difficulties, rest to the parts is the first essential; the absolutely indispensable step; the next is to supply the parts with a better quality of blood, a blood which is perfect, pure, and abun- dant. Nothing can purify the blood without pure air; nothing can make it perfect and life-giving but muscular exercise, sufficient, yet not excessive, not exhausting, the whole expressed in three words, “ MODERATE out-door ACTIVITIES,” always safe, al- ways permanently efficient, and will always cure, if cure is possible, when conjoined with all the sleep the system will take at night in large, well-ventilated chambers, having a constant supply of pure out-door air steadily introduced.
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