The West Virginia Journal

Get Enough Sleep

We have often heard young men remark that four or five hours' sleep was all they wanted, and all that the human system required. The habit of going without sufficient sleep is injurious. Thousands, no doubt, permanently injure their health in this way. We live in a fast age, when everybody seems to be trying to pervert the order of nature. If sick will be persistent in turning night into day it is not to be wondered that few last the allotted term of life: no matter what may be a man's occupation—physical or mental, or like Othello "gone," and living in idleness—the constitution cannot last, depend upon it, without a sufficiency of regular and refreshing sleep. Joe Hunter, the great surgeon, died suddenly of a spasmodic affection of the heart, a disease greatly encouraged by want of sleep. In a volume just published by a medical man, there is one great lesson that students and literary men may learn, and that is, that Hunter probably killed himself by taking too little sleep. "Four hours rest at night, and one after dinner, cannot be deemed sufficient to recruit the exhausted powers of the body and mind." Certainly not, and the consequence was, that Hunter died early. If men will insist in cheating sleep, her "twin sister Death" will avenge the insult.