Narcotic drugs do not weary consciousness; they simply destroy it. They stupefy us instead of inducing sleep. Those who would wisely learn about this by experiments upon others rather than upon themselves, will find it all in the article by Ringer and Sainsbury on “Sedatives” in Tuke’s “Dictionary of Psychological Medicine.” It is enough for us to be assured that narcotic sleep is less like real sleep than the hibernation of the animal is like repose. (But see “Remedies” in Appendix A.) Henry Ward Beecher used to get up when he was sleepless and take a cold bath, a good device for a full-blooded, vigorous person: but a weak person would not “react” and get warm again. For such an one it would be better to sponge off and restore the circulation by rubbing. Some physicians have prescribed, with good success, blood-warm baths, beginning at a temperature of about 98 and heated up to 110 or 115 Fahrenheit. When the moisture has been absorbed by wrapping one’s self in a blanket, throw it off and get quickly into a warm bed. Mark Twain used to get to sleep by lying down on the bathroom floor after the bath. Some, when other means fail, find it effective to place a cold-water bag at the back of the neck, or to rub the feet with a rough towel: with others, a hot-water bottle at the back of the neck works better. A warm footbath helps some persons. At the sanitariums they sponge with warm water, rub with wet salt, gently sponge it off, and dry the body—all of which helps the blood to the surface. It is always well to see that the bowels are emptied. Only trial and judgment will show whether any of these will effect a cure: they all aim at the same mark, to abstract the blood from the brain. That drinking milk produces sleep in some persons may probably be due to the lactic acid in the milk, which is a soporific like morphine. Perhaps its use is to help young animals to the long sleeps they need. Willard Moyer, in an entertaining essay, tells us that it is often advisable for the stomach to have sufficient work for the blood to do so as to call it from the brain. This does not mean that a meal that will overload the stomach is a cure for insomnia, but that something light, such as a cup of warm milk and a cracker, may often “send one comfortably to sleep like a drowsy kitten or a well-fed baby.” A. Fleming, following Durham, the author of the “Psychology of Sleep,” showed that to deprive the brain of blood by pressing the carotid arteries for thirty seconds brought immediate and deep sleep, but it only continued while all pulsation of these arteries is stopped.[7] [7] It is interesting also to note that a similar pressure on the jugular veins produces loss of consciousness, but from just the opposite cause, that is, from congestion of blood in the brain. This state of unconsciousness resembles coma just as the other resembles sleep. E. M. W.