P SLEEPLESSNESS. 497 



it would not consider that he was suffering from any complaint at all. Some- 

 times the affection is confined to the muscles of the neck, and then the head is 

 always nodding or shaking from side to side. In these slowly progressive cases tin- 



so has no tendency to shorten life, -jind its duration may be indefinitely 

 prolonged. An inmate cf Uie Chelsea Hospital who was first affected at the age of 

 M.xty Jived to be 107. 



\Vhen fully establiflhed it is an obstinate complaint, and not at all amenable to 

 ment. The mere violence of the movement, however, is no eviden< 

 i neural >ility, for slight tremors are sometimes the most obstinate. Benefit is often 

 experienced from the administration of phosphorus (Pr. 53 or 54), or arsenic (Pr. 

 The general health may be improved by cod-liver oil, or extract of malt. The 

 application of galvanism by a medical man often does good. 



SHINGLES. (See SKIN DISEASES.) 



SLEEP SLEEPLESSNESS. 



For the maintenance of an organ in a condition of health it is necessary 

 that it should be allowed intervals of rest, during which the processes of nutrition 

 and repair may go on undisturbed. Even those actions which are most continuous, 

 such, for example, as respiration and the pulsation of the heart, have distinct periods 

 of suspension. Thus after each beat of the heart there is an interval, during which 

 the organ is at rest. This amounts to one-fourth of the time requisite to make one 

 pulsation and begin another. During an aggregate of six hours out of the twenty- 

 four the heart is not working, and is in a state of repose. It takes short periods of 

 rest, like a sailor, but it has its due allowance of sleep for all that. And this, too, 

 is equally true of breathing. If we divide the respiratory act into three equal parts, 

 one will be occupied in inspiration, one in expiration, and the other by a period of 

 quiescence. Dining eight hours out of the twenty-four the chest and lungs are 

 inactive. And so with the other organs of the body, each has its time for work and 

 its time for rest. And of our muscles, none, even during our most untiring waking 

 movements, are kept in continued action. "We may be " on the move " all day, but 

 for all that we are not moving every part of the body at the same moment, or we 

 should soon be exhausted, and our muscles would refuse to perform their office. 



But for the brain there is no real rest, except during sleep. So long as the indi- 

 vidual is awake he is always thinking, the' brain is always active, always " on the 

 work," and there is no such thing as rest. No man yet ever succeeded in thinking 

 of nothing at all ; you cannot do it if you try. The substance of the brain is 

 consumed by every thought, by every action of the will, by every sound that is 

 heard, by every object that is seen, by every substance that is touched, and by every 

 painful or pleasurable sensation, so that each instant of our lives witnesses the decay 

 of some portion of its tissue, and the formation of another to take its place. During 

 our waking moments the formation of the new substance does not go on with the 

 same rapidity as the decay of the old ; repair cannot keep pace with the process of 

 destruction hence the necessity for sleep. The state of repose attendant upon 

 this condition allows the balance to be restored, and hence the feeling of freshness 

 32 



