Degrees and Varieties of Insomnia

by: Joseph Collins, MD

The capacity to sleep can acquire by effort in the same way as the capacity to think concretely or to run without getting out of breath. We know that many men whom we now class among the immortals possessed this capacity to sleep to a most unusual degree- Shelley, napoleon, Brougham.

It is related of the poet that no matter now harassing the family relationship became he could to sleep at will. It seems incredible that a man of the energy, enthusiasm, activity, vigor and variety of intellect and ambition of Brougham could also switch on sleep as one turns on electric light. It is not likely that it ways to the ability that he owned his remarkable longevity, or rather the retention of his faculties until four score years and ten. When one recalls the physical and mental activities is this extraordinary man one wonders how the workings of such a brain could be shut off and turned on at will.

Circumstances and things apparently trivial may cause insomnia. A celebrated German physician, Strumpell, has published a story of a patient afflicted with a disease which made his insensitive to touch and temperature and who went to sleep immediately when his eyes, and ears, the two remaining organs, were closed.

Convenience directed us to work in the light and sleep in the dark, and custom has confirmed these two directions, adding to darkness perfect quiet and bodily comfort. But man can learn to sleep without these easy introductions. Boiler makers grow accustomed to taking their rest beneath the clang of their comrades rivet hammers and the overworked, busy practitioner of medicine has often to get his sleep by taking naps of a few minutes duration as he is driven from the home of one patient to another. Everyone knows how astonished the countryman is on coming to the metropolis to find that his city cousin peacefully through the clang and thunder of cable cars, elevated railway trains, and the countless noises of the street which to his bucolic soul make night hideous. On the other hand, the city cousin who visits the old farm finds the crowding of cocks, the barking of dogs, the interminable conflict of “Katy did” and “Katy didn’t,” and the early twittering of birds infinitely worse than the roar and clang of the city. The question is merely one of habit as admirably set forth in the ancient ditty:-

An old lady who lived by the shore,
At length got so used to the roar,
That she never could sleep,
Unless someone would keep,
A-pounding away at the door.

About the Author

Joseph Collins, MD