4 SLEEPING SICKNESS 



WeaTcness of the Brain ; some or all of these Causes co- 

 operating to it. 



" First. In Immaturity , or Childhood, it is a common 

 and true Observation, that more of Phlegm and recre- 

 mentitious Humour is bred, than at Manhood ; because 

 the Fibres, and consequently the Faculties resulting 

 from, their Constitution, have not attained their due 

 Spring and Perfection ; and it is only supposing the 

 Africans continue longer Children than the Europeans. 



" Secondly. Promoted here by their Diet and Way of 

 Living. At Home it is mostly on Roots, Fruits, and 

 Herbage, greedily devouring such as are wild and uncul- 

 tured ; which, together with the intolerable Heats of the 

 Sun, weakening the concoctive Faculty, together with 

 their Inactivity, render a very recrementitious Nutriment : 

 Their Indolence is such (when shipped on Board for Slaves) 

 as to be entirely dispassionate at parting with Wives, 

 Children, Friends, and Country, and are scarcely touched 

 with any other Sense or Appetite, than that of Hunger ; 

 and even in this, for want of Custom or Instinct, they 

 cannot distinguish proper Food, nor know when to leave 

 off, voraciously eating though Victuals be never so dirtily 

 cook'd ; and whether the Flesh be raw or dressed, whether 

 of the Guts or a Sirloin ; a Practice also that may sometime, 

 by over-stretching the Fibres of the Stomach, occasion 

 Crudity and indigestion. By their Sloth and Idleness 

 the Blood becomes more depauperated ; and those recre- 

 mentitious Humours bred from it, that Exercise would 

 throw off through the proper secretory Organs, are here 

 disposed towards the weakest Part, which in the Gener- 

 ality of Negroe Slaves I take to be the Brain. 



" Thirdly, The natural Weakness of the Brain, I am apt 

 to think the principal Cause of the Distemper. Doubt- 

 less that Part gains Strength by Exercise, i.e. by the 

 Employment of our rational Faculties, as well as the 

 Muscles and external Fibres of the Body by Labour ; 



