Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/184

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CORPULENCE, DIET, AND SLEEP.
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The following is the method of producing sleep, according to Dr. Binns, in his "Anatomy of Sleep":—

"How to Produce Sleep.—Let him turn on his right side; place his head comfortably on the pillow, so that it exactly occupies the angle a line drawn from the head to the shoulder would form; and then, slightly closing his lips, take rather a full inspiration, breathing as much as he possibly can through the nostrils. This, however, is not absolutely necessary, as some persons breathe always through their mouths during sleep, and rest as sound as those who do not. Having taken a full inspiration, the lungs are then to be left to their own action; that is, the respiration is neither to be accelerated nor retarded. The attention must now be fixed upon the action in which the patient is engaged. He must depict to himself that he sees the breath passing from his nostrils in a continuous stream; and, the very instant that he brings his mind to conceive this apart from all other ideas, consciousness and memory depart, imagination slumbers, fancy becomes dormant, thought subdued; the sentiment faculties lose their susceptibility; the vital or ganglionic system assumes the sovereignty; and, as we before remarked, he no longer wakes, but sleeps. This train of phenomena is but the effect of a moment. The instant the mind is brought to the contemplation of a single sensation, that instant the sensorium abdicts the throne, and the hypnoctic faculty steeps itself in oblivion."


    of these can easily be set up in home or office, and very great benefit will in a short time follow its use. These contrivances are especially adapted to develop the upper part of the body. Walk to develop the lower part. If one cannot afford a 'home gymnasium,' which costs from six to ten dollars, let him buy a cord of wood, and saw on that for half an hour a day; he will find himself a much better man physically, as well as mentally, in a very short time."