Take, for example, the fever patient. Anyone who has watched beside a loved one slowly consuming, with the fever raging in his blood, will remember the sigh of relief that has gone up from physician and nurse when the patient falls into a natural sleep after the turn of things. During dreadful nights and anxious days we wait breathlessly for the “crisis”; we hang upon the physician’s word, scan his face for every fleeting expression, because we may be deceived by the disease, but his practiced eye should know. But we do not need his assurance when the moaning and restlessness pass, when the stertorous breathing quiets, when the skin becomes moist, and the gentle, regular breathing tells us that natural sleep has come. If we can be spared, we go out under the stars and, whether Christian or pagan, up from the depths of our souls wells a prayer of thankfulness to “whatever gods there be” for the incomparable blessing of sleep. We feel as if we could “go softly all our days” before the powers who have decreed that sleep shall gently steep the eyelids of the one we love. Nourishment, in the form of food, is desirable, but more important still is the sleep when Nature busies herself building new tissue and blood to make good the ravages of fever’s siege. We are careful to keep even good news from the patient, if we have cause to fear that it will prove too stimulating, and everything depressing or alarming is absolutely withheld, because sleep is the paramount need of the depleted body. We all recognize the value of sleep to the person just past the crisis of a severe illness, and the next thing to learn is that to the person invalided through some less active cause, it is as necessary, and that it may be had. It may seem an extravagant statement to say that the invalid should be able to summon sleep at will even better than an active, healthy person. But we may see the truth of this statement if we accept Dr. Edward Binns’ assurance that “in no sense can fatigue be said to be the cause of sleep,” so that the usual claim that the sick do not get an opportunity to weary themselves, and so cannot expect sound sleep, cannot be accounted a reason for sleeplessness of the invalid. To be sure, lying abed is not always restful. A friend of mine was kept in bed for some weeks by a broken ankle. It was necessary to remain in the one position day and night, which so wore upon her nervous organization that she grew restless and “lost” much sleep. In this condition, she said the hardest thing to bear was the well-meant congratulations of her friends that at least she was “getting a much-needed rest.” But the real reason why an invalid should learn to sleep at will is because sleep alone can do what Macbeth asks of the physician: