284 OF DRUNKENNESS.- SECT. XXI. 2. 



nation, and fleep, fucceeds, in the fame manner as 

 when the ftomach is filled with other lefs intoxicat- 

 ing food. 



This inattention to the irritative motions occafiori- 

 ed by external ftimuli is a very important circum- 

 ftancein the approach of fleep, and is produced in- 

 young children by rocking their cradles : during 

 which all vifible objects become indiftinct to them. 

 An uniform foft repeated found, as the murmurs of 

 a gentle current, or of bees, are faid to produce 

 the fame effect, by prefenting indiitindt ideas of in* 

 eonfequential founds, and by thus ftealing our at- 

 tention from other objects, whiift by their conti- 

 nued reiterations they become familiar themfelves, 

 and we ceafe gradually to attend to any thing, and 

 fleep enfues. 



2. After great fatigue or inanition, when the 

 ftomach is fuddenly filled with flefh and vegetable 

 food, rhe inattention to external ftimuli, and the 

 reveries of imagination, become fo confpicuotis as 

 to amount to a degree of intoxication. The fame is 

 at any time produced by fuperadding a little wine OP 

 pium to our common meals ; or by taking thefe fe- 

 parately in confiderable quantity , and this more 

 efficacioufly after fatigue or inanition - y becaufe a 

 lefs quantity of any ftimulating material will excite 

 an organ into energetic a6tion, after i has lately 

 been torpid from defetof (timulus; as objects ap- 

 pear more luminous, after we have been in the dark; 

 and becaufe the fufpenfion of volition,- which is the 

 immediate caufeof fleep, is fooner induced, after a 

 continued voluntary exertion has in part exhausted 

 the fenforial power .of volition ; in the fame manner 

 as we cannot contract a fmgle mufcle long together 

 without intervals of inaction. 



3. In the beginning of intoxication we are inclined 

 to fleep, as mentioned above, but by the excite- 

 ment of external circumftances, as of noife, light^ 



bufmefc, 



