222 SLEEPING NORTH AND SOUTH 



in lying in this position was an accidental discovery. 

 It will be sufficient to give three out of all the cases 

 I have gathered. 



The first I have at second hand from a friend who 

 was acquainted with the subject and had it from 

 him. This man (the subject) is a commercial traveller, 

 a vigorous, healthy, commonplace person who leads 

 a tremendously active life, continually rushing all 

 over the country and sleeping for weeks at a stretch 

 in a different hotel every night, in any bed he can 

 find vacant in the house. On retiring at eleven or 

 twelve o'clock to his room, he undresses and throws 

 himself on to his bed, and as a rule after two or 

 three minutes jumps up because he feels that he is 

 not going to sleep in that position. He then throws 

 himself about in this and that direction until he finds 

 relief, and then getting up drags his bed's head 

 round to the right position, and when he has got it 

 he drops to sleep and doesn't wake till morning. 



The second case is that of an acquaintance of mine, 

 an old gentleman of eighty-seven, who has been 

 much abroad in different countries, including many 

 years in the tropics, in Government employment, 

 and who is now living in retirement. He assures me 

 that he has never had a day's illness in his life and 

 doesn't know what a headache is. His only suffering 

 has been from insomnia when he was a young man; 

 eventually he found by accident that he slept re- 

 markably well when lying in a north-and-south 

 position, and since he made that happy discovery 

 he has never had a restless night. 



