SLEEPLESS SICKNESS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17472, 5 June 1922, Page 8

SLEEPLESS SICKNESS.

TORMENTS OF BAD DREAMS. (SPECIALLY WRITTEN JOB "THB PBKS3.") (Bi MBS JTJLUK Grandb.) ! GENEVA, April 23. Medical experts who have Jmrt returned from the Prevention or Epidemics Congress, recently held in Waxsaw, where they were incidentally comparing notes about the general health in the various countries, aU agreed that everywhere peopl* tend to suffer from what might bo caHed "sleepless sickness," and from the terrors of bad dreams. Particularly is this true of men who were combatants. The injury done to the brain by the war has not yet been oveiccme. „ . Professor Nicolai, formerly > Professor of Physiology at Berlin University, and just Appointed to Bucnoe Aires University, has called attention to tne fact that frequently men who have gone through a war .aro afterwards unable to sleep, and if they do fall asleep are tormented by bad dreams. They live through the battles over and over again, "and scream aloud, sometimes in terror, sometimes in anger, sometimes even in a tone of command.' 5 Placid men, he remarks, have been known to become incredibly irritable so that their wives have been unable to live with them on the same happy terms as. before; while strong men have often been apt to weep at the least trifle, and keenly realised that they had lost aU self-control. The experience of medical men throughout the Continent at present is that what people suffer from most is nervousness, and this is peculiarly noticeable in the case of Slav and Latin races. According to medical authorities, the present unsettled conditions in commerce and international relations generally are due primarily to the nerves of such vast numbers of people being shattered. As Proiessor Nicolai said: "War is in no sense a tonic or fortifying medicine, but, on the contrary, has a lowering effect." "Psycho-analysis," said one physician, "may do something to restore a man's power of slcep,_ but it is the terrors or dreaming which undermine his brain and physique, and for them at present there sec ma to be no recognised scientific remedy. Men go to bed after a day's work, and go to sleep, "but they wake up tired out by having gone through in their dreams all sorts of adventures, sometimes very unpleasant, and very often horrible. Instead of being refreshed. I they feel weaker, both physically and ' mentally." Statistics prove that _ the asylums have never been v so full in most countries as since the armistice. In Russia thousands of demented men are wandering about the country for the simple reason thit there are not asylums in which to put them. Of course, it is not merely men who were actually in th© fighting line who are broken down nervously now, but also civilians, who were never near the front. I myself have noticed at the numerous international congresses which I hav© attended since the armistice how prevalent are the signs of nervousness The other day I was talking to a Jvdge of the High Court ! belonging to a belligerent country. I knew the man before ths war —cool and collected as ho then was. While speaking to me now, however, he twists the muscles of his face, his fingers twitch, and his whole body almost quivers. Statesmen to whom I" have often listened before the war, either in Par-1 liament on or public platforms, speak- ] ing with the utmost self-possesion, and without the slightest suspicion of nervousness, now cannot keep still a single instant. If their hands rest on the table, their fingers begin to more as if playing on the keys of a piano, and their very voices tremble. When you meet these people in the morning for an interview, they say: "You must excuse me, I am so tired. Soitiehow I could not sleep. I thought the change here migllt have done me good, but it has not." I should say fully twenty persons of different nationalities have said this to me or something exactly equivalent, Even journalists who are supposed to have no nerves, have often complained about being unable to sleep, and of suffering the terrors of dreams; and this is. true, not only of' European journalists, but ajso of American, many of whom had coin© across the ocean to attend international congresses. One person only whom I have met among _ those attending international gatherings of politicians', financiers, medical men, philanthropists, and Labour representatives, told me that he has always slept well, and is never troubled by bad or any other dreams — and he is a Quaker.