602 SLEEP. 



hours in the twenty-four." " Frederic the Great," as he is called, 

 and the truly great John Hunter, " slept only five hours in the 

 same period." Dr. Macnish, to whom I am indebted for these 

 instances, says, " I know a lady who never sleeps above half an 

 hour at a time, and the whole period of whose sleep does not 

 exceed three or four hours in the twenty-four, and yet she is in 

 the enjoyment of excellent health." e Sir Gilbert Blane states 

 that General Pichegru informed him that, " in the course of 

 his active campaigns, he had for a whole year not more than one 

 hour of sleep, on an average, in twenty-four hours." f Sleep 

 varies so much in intensity that a dead sleep of an hour may be 

 an equal repose to an ordinary sleep of many hours. The cele- 

 brated De Moivre slept twenty hours out of the twenty -four; 

 and Thomas Parr latterly slept away by far the greater part 

 of his existence, * 



We read that some persons have been able to sleep long 

 whenever they wished. " Such," says Dr. Macnish, " was the 

 case with Quin, the celebrated player, who could slumber for 

 twenty-four hours successively." And " Dr. Reid could take 

 as much food and immediately afterwards as much sleep as 

 were sufficient for two days." 



Independently of apoplexy, we have cases of extraordinarily 

 long sleep. A woman in Renault slept seventeen or eighteen 

 hours a day for fifteen years. h Another is recorded to have slept 

 once for forty days. 1 A man named Samuel Chilton, twenty -five 

 years of age, at Tinsbury, near Bath, once slept for a month : in 

 two years he slept again for seventeen days, at the beginning 

 of which period he took food, and had evacuations, but at length 

 his jaws fixed : when he fell asleep the barley was sowing, and 

 when he awoke he would hardly believe he saw it reaping : at 

 the end of a year he fell into such another sleep : his farther 



8 1. c. p. 33. sq. He refers to Gooch for the story, which he very properly 

 disbelieves, of a man, who " enjoyed good health and reached his seventy-third 

 year," and yet " slept only for fifteen minutes out of the twenty-four hours ; 

 and even this was a kind of dozing and not a perfect sleep." 



f Medical Logic, p. 83. 2d edit. 



e Dr. Macnish, 1. c. p. 35. 



h Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. i. 



1 Plott's Natural History of Staffordshire. 



