Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 151, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1915 — How To Sleeo Despite Insomnia [ARTICLE]

How To Sleeo Despite Insomnia

Ih the present age of overwork and artificial excitement there are numerous people who find it very difficult to get sufficient sleep. Included In this category are those who suffer from sick headache, hysterical and neurasthenic persons, those under the Influence of some obsession and melancholic and neuropathic subjects of all kinds. It is futile to Increase the doses. They have no further effect. But they are noxious and poisonous to the system, so that the remedy becomes worse than the disease. Sleep may be obtained by simple means. It is enough to*act upon the brain by means of physical agents. The patient may be Induced to fall asleep by some continuous, monotonous excitation, a prolonged use of the sense of sight as, for Instance, by the fixation of some brilliant object, or of the sense of hearing by means of the ticking of a pendulum. / When the doctor has succeeded In making the patient fall asleep he endeavors to cause him to sleep as long as possible. This is a difficult matter in cities where noises are too intense and too varied. They do not cease even during the night, and unceasingly they recall to the nervous patient his business, his occupations and social obligations. The physical and moral overstrains which are the inevitable consequence of our intense civilization must be counteracted by sleep, which while repairing the nervous waste will also strengthen and temper the nervous energy. For this purpose scientific methods are being devised agd applied in the establishment of homes for treatment by means of a sleep “cure” remote from towns. Dr. Felix Regnault in an excellent article on this subject, from which the information here given is extracted, speaks in the highest terms of a sanitarium founded for this purpose by Dr. Lemesle of Ldfoes. His establishment is situated in Touraine, a country with a mild and equable climate and light atmosphere. He causes his patients to sleep by the means indicated above, and if these are insufficient he has recourse to a still more efficacious remedy—namely, blue light. As Dr. Windt, the celebrated German physiologist, first pointed out, the different rays of the solar spectrum have a varied action on the nervous system. Mons. Lumiere of Lyons observed that those of his employes who worked in rooms illuminated by red light became nervous and rapidly fatigued. This effect disappeared when he replaced the red light by means of green. Red is, in fact, for men as well as for animals, the most exciting part of the spectrum. Green gives tranquillity, while violet, indigo and blue are soothing. Patients are therefore treated by phototherapy. The walls and ceiling of the room are all papered or painted blue and the windows have blue glass. All the furniture is lacquered in white or blue in order that no other color may combat the influence of the blue light. „ . . When night falls light is supplied by electric lamps with blue bulbs. In order to effect a gradual transition between the sedative blue and the ordinary white light the corridors and halls are illuminated with green light After a short sojourn in the blue light the nervous patients begin to feel the incessant flow of ideas diminish. Calm comes little by little and presently refreshing sleep. . Amid such surroundings the patient soon has to sleep. Care is taken not to disturb him. The more the sleep can %e prolonged —for days or even weeks—the more the subject will benefit from Its efficacy. The patient takes his food and attends to his own wants in a quasi-automatic manner, immediately afterwards resuming his interrupted sleep. Many overworked and nervous people from the cities, who complain of a thousand different Ills, would be rapidly restored to health by such a sleep “cure.” *