Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/424

418 There is no simple fact more forcefully borne in upon the writer than that early rising and movement in the open air before breakfast is a measure of vast importance in a large array of chronic ailments, especially those involving gout, dyspepsia, constipation, obesity and disorders of the sense organs. Many people aver that they are made miserable by rising early, stirring about before taking food, and consequently suffer from headaches, nausea, prostration and the like. These phenomena are the results of some derangements in the circulatory balance, most probably due to a morbid quality of sleep, which for the most part is remediable. In proof of this statement is the fact, usually clearly demonstrable, that if the physician can secure fair cooperation, with persistence all this wretchedness will disappear. Particularly is this shown if circumstances compel the patient to alter his habits for the better. Abundant illustrative instances could be cited. Weir Mitchell in his recommendations for the rest treatment, so valuable in the repair of profound conditions of exhaustion, compels a fixed hour for wakening, usually seven Often it has been the writer's duty to soothe and explain to Dr. Mitchell's patients, who resented being awakened, the reason for this regulation.

Disuse of muscle is followed by atrophy; so of other tissues. Strength can only grow by judicious, continued use. Witness the pitiable spectacle of steady degeneration in the tissues, in mental and physical aptitudes, commonly displayed in those of advancing years, who, through withdrawal of normal stimuli to exertion, permit their organs and their structures to fall into disuse. Prosperity, interpreted so often to mean cessation of energies, is often fatal to physical and mental efficiency. The antidote is simple and most effective, the retention of habits of usefulness applied all along the whole line of normal activities.

The whole range of bodily derangements and diseases can be interpreted through variations in the blood supply. This again depends upon the incidence of diverse irritants, infections from without or poisons generated within; or such as are the products of changes in the blood plasma effecting oxygenation.

Sleep being the relaxation, suspension, of the consciousness, the brain being the center of consciousness, it naturally follows that, as evidence shows, the circulation in the brain is, during sleep, at the lowest normal tension. Whatever disturbs sleep, therefore, probably induces an afflux of blood to the brain. It is evident that to sleep peacefully and continually it is important that the blood pressure shall be as nearly as possible normal. If this be markedly above or below par sleep is interfered with. Plethoric folk, however, supposedly of over-tense vessels, often sleep better than the feeble and weakly; yet they are more likely to slumber heavily, are difficult to wake, and on