SLEEP AND ITS REGULATION. 4°9 



SLEEP AND ITS REGULATION. 



By Dr. J. MADISON TAYLOR, 



PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



SLEEP as a factor in physical economics ranks in importance with 

 respiration and digestion. Those who live normally, who 

 throughout all ordinary exigencies maintain a natural attitude toward 

 life, its strains and reponsibilities, may expect to enjoy a full measure 

 of this restorative function. How much each one needs is not to be 

 determined by dogmatic rules or precedents, nor does each one require 

 the same amount under every condition or circumstance. There must 

 be enough, daily and weekly, and of suitable character, to restore the 

 balance of neural energy reduced by whatsoever of fatigue follows 

 upon daily activities; otherwise the sensorium resents this deprivation 

 in one way or another. Individual needs vary and can only be deter- 

 mined inferentially, giving due weight to generally accepted require- 

 ments. 



Sleep, being the completest form of rest, is needed most by the 

 youngest and least by the oldest. Most sleep is required by the weakest 

 and least by the strongest. During childhood and exhaustive states 

 too much sleep is rarely possible. Eor those in full tide of vigor too 

 much sleep is often distinctly hurtful. Many modifications will 

 immediately suggest themselves to those who are wise or learned in 

 the science of bodily growth, development and disorders. Experience 

 always counts for much. Variants, sometimes wide, are often permis- 

 sible. Large errors will arise when these qualifications are marred 

 by caprice, taste, prejudice; and harm follows, of one sort or another, 

 sometimes of serious degree, by obscuration of sane reasoning on what 

 may seem to be obvious and simple facts. 



Physical efficiency depends chiefly upon the kind and amount of 

 effort expended. Rest is an inevitable corollary. Relaxation is the 

 starting point of all effort. For example, the strongest blows, the 

 most accurate thrusts, can only proceed from an arm in thorough 

 equipoise. Equipoise presupposes a full quantum of energy. Animal 

 energy depends upon adequate rest as much as on force-giving foods. 

 Complex acts, conditional always upon harmonies between intact 

 central nervous dynamos, and well-adjusted mechanisms, can only be 

 performed in their completeness when forces are at the norm. 



Sleep is an absolute necessity for conscious beings. There are 

 those who oppose this view, and some require relatively little, and that, 



