ner.

When sleeplessness proceeds from the heat of the weather, the person should lie very lightly covered, and let the air circulate freely through his room. A cold bath taken shortly before going to bed, or sponging the body with cold water, will often ensure a comfortable night's rest in the hot season of the year. When it arises from heat in the soles or palms, these parts should be bathed with cold vinegar and water, before lying down, and, if necessary, occasionally afterwards till the heat abates, which usually occurs in two or three hours. Attention must also be paid to the stomach and bowels.

An easy mind, a good digestion, and plenty of exercise in the open air, are the grand conducives to sound sleep;-and, accordingly, every man whose repose is indifferent, should endeavor to make them his own as soon as possible. When sleeplessness becomes habitual, the utmost care ought to be taken to overcome the habit, by the removal of every thing that has a tendency to cherish it.

CHAPTER X.

DROWSINESS.

DROWSINESS is symptomatic of apoplexy and some other diseases, but sometimes it exists as an idiopathic affection. There are persons who have a disposition to sleep on every occasion. They do so at all times, and in all places. They sleep after dinner; they sleep in the theatre; they sleep in church. It is the same to them in what situation they may be placed: sleep is the great end of their existence their occupation-their sole employment. Morpheus is the deity at whose shrine they worship-the only god whose influence over them is omnipotent. Let them be placed in almost any circumstances, and their constitutional failing prevails. It falls upon them in the midst of mirth; it assails them when travelling. Let them sail, or ride, or sit, or lie, or walk, sleep overtakes them binds their faculties in torpor; and makes them dead to all that is passing around. Such are our dull, heavy-headed, drowsy mortals, those sons and daughters of phlegm-with passions as inert as a Dutch fog, and intellects as sluggish as the

movements of the hippopotamus or leviathan. No class of society is so insufferable as this. There is a torpor and obtuseness about their faculties, which render them dead to every impression. They have eyes and ears, yet they neither see nor hear; and the most exhilarating scenes may be passing before them without once attracting their notice. It is not uncommon for persons of this stamp to fall asleep in the midst of a party to which they have been invited; Mr. Mackenzie, in one of his papers, speaks of an honest farmer having done so alongside of a young lady, who was playing on the harp for his amusement. The cause of this constitutional disposition to doze upon every occasion, seems to be a certain want of activity in the brain, the result of which is, that the individual is singularly void of fire, energy, and passion. He is of a phlegmatic temperament, generally a great eater, and very destitute of imagination. Such are the general characteristics of those who are predisposed to drowsiness: the cases where such a state coexists with intellectual energy are few in number.

Boerhaave speaks of an eccentric physician who took it into his head that sleep was the natural state of man, and accordingly slept eighteen hours out of the twenty-four-till he died of apoplexy, a disease which is always apt to be produced by excessive sleep.

Cases of constitutional drowsiness are in a great measure without remedy, for the soporifie tendeney

springs from some natural defect, which no medicinal means can overcome.

Equally impossible of cure is the affection when it arises, as it very often does, from old age. Even long before this period of life, as at the age of fifty or sixty, people very often get into somnolent habits, and are pretty sure to fall asleep if they attempt to read, or even if they place themselves in an easy chair before the fire. I know of no cure for this indolent propensity, unless indeed the habits arise, as it sometimes does, from corpulency, in which case it is more manageable, in so far as its cause is occasionally capable of being removed.

Drowsiness sometimes proceeds from a fulness of blood in the head, or a disordered state of the

digestive organs. When it originates from the former cause, it becomes necessary to have recourse to general or local blood-letting. The person, likewise, should use, from time to time, mild laxatives, live temperately, and take abundance of exercise. Medicines of a similar kind are necessary when the affection arises from the state of the stomach and bowels: so soon as these organs are restored to health, the symptomatic drowsiness will naturally disappear.

Persons who feel the disposition to drowsiness gaining upon them, should struggle vigorously against it; for when once the habit is fairly established, its eradication is very difficult. Exercise of body and mind, early rising and the cold bath, are among the best means for this purpose.

CHAPTER XI.

PROTRACTED SLEEP.

I HAVE already mentioned a few instances of individuals remaining for days or weeks in a state of profound sleep. The nature of this extraordinary affection is in a great measure, unknown; it arises, in most cases, without any obvious cause, generally resists every method that can be adopted for removing it, and disappears of its own accord.

The case of Mary Lyall, related in the 8th volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh," is one of the most remarkable instances of excessive somnolency on record. This woman fell asleep on the morning of the 27th of June, and continued in that state till the evening of the 30th of the same month, when she awoke, and remained in her usual way till the 1st of July, when she again fell asleep, and continued so till the 8th of August. She was bled, blistered, immersed in the hot and cold bath, and stimulated in almost every possible way, without having any consciousness of what was going on. For the first seven days she continued motionless, and ex