"A FAMILY DOCTOR" ON SLEEPLESSNESS.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4552, 7 August 1883, Page 3

"A FAMILY DOCTOR" ON SLEEPLESSNESS.

I hare, last of all, to say a word or two •boat sleep— 11 tired Nature's sweet restorer." The italics are mine, not the poet's.- I wish thereby to draw the • reader's attention to the fact that unless a due proportion of muscular exercise be taken during the day, the sleep by night >' will not be refreshing. Exercise is the first preparation • for ' sleep, and after supper, which, I have already ,said, should be early, the mind must not b# allowed to dwell upon any thoughts that excite or annoy. It it a good plan to read for some time before, going to bed, and one pipe of good tobacco may be allowed. Do not readin'.bed, but read in your bedroom; perhaps lying on a sofa in confortable dishabille, and ready whenever the inclination to sleep steals over yon to get gently and softly between the sheets., The room should be qniet and dark, with the windowcurtain* drawn, to exclude the too obstrusiTe morning light. The temperature of the room should; if possi> ble, be sustained -at about 56 or GO degs. Bank the fire, else it will go out, and the temperature will fall, to your detriment. "Tte bed itself should be moderately bird, but »cry smooth and eren, the bed-elothen light and warm, and '■ the pillows toft -and. rather high. The MOB) jhonld be judiciously ventilated, and the cnrtains should not. go right round the bed. I need scarcely add that narcotics or -sleeping,draughts-are most injurious, whether in the shape of opiates or that slow ' but certain, poison called chloral hydrate-- *_ L^__*~-'' ■' • ,±