604 SLEEP. 



of waking, dozed for several months and died. A poor paralytic 

 man at Kirkheaton, twenty years of age, was seldom awake more 

 than three hours in the twenty-four for a year : once he slept 

 for three weeks, breathing calmly, but incapable of being roused 

 and of eating or drinking. 



A lethargy of several days before apoplexy is sometimes ob- 

 served. Some are constitutionally or temporarily very susceptible 

 of the influence of soporifics. I have seen a person destroyed 

 by a single dose of a third of a grain of muriate of morphia ; and 

 two or three from a grain, although they had recently taken doses 

 of half a grain, and even a grain, with little effect. Again, in 

 morbid irritability, as in delirium without strength, large quanti- 

 ties are borne. I have seen a grain of muriate of morphia, after 

 its exhibition in more distant doses, taken every hour for forty- 

 eight hours, with not the least effect. Sometimes, without dying, 

 persons remain along time asleep after soporifics. Dr. Macnish 

 refers to a child, near Lymington, that was thus sent to sleep for 

 three weeks. 



I believe that most adults require from six to eight hours sleep. 

 Some require nine or ten. In proportion to the exhaustion is 

 sleep required. Therefore in debility, as after a severe disease, 

 convalescents, though making no cerebral or muscular exertion, 

 sleep a great deal, and find the utmost invigoration from it. The 

 longer the waking state is protracted the greater, both absolutely 

 and proportionally, is the exhaustion, whence one advantage of 

 early hours, which is expressed by the adage, one hour's sleep 

 before twelve is worth two after. If a person rises proportionally 

 late, he certainly cannot suffer from this course ; and if he suffers, 

 it must be ascribed, provided there is no debauch in the case, to 

 his loss of the influence of so much solar light and morning air. 

 One of our judges, Lord Mansfield, is said to have questioned every 

 very old person who went into court respecting his habits : and 

 found that some had lived in towns, some in the country, some were 

 hard livers, some temperate, and all agreed in only one point, 

 that of having been early risers through life. I, however, have 

 known several very old persons who had always sat up late, 

 though not in vicious indulgence, and risen late. 



The Rev. Mr. Wasse, rector of Aynho in Northumberland, as- 

 certained, in a variety of instances, that we are nearly an inch 

 taller on rising in the morning than on going to bed ; and the 



