San Antonio Daily Light

Causes of Sleeplessness.

There are many causes of sleeplessness, and all are not as important in their origin. Of course in one deals with fever, with mania, with unusual debility of the whole muscular organism, certain medicines must necessarily be given and the constant attention of a physician is required; but men, women and children suffer from disorders of sleep which are entirely amenable to home treatment, and it goes without saying that the woman who is at the head of the house, be she wife or maiden aunt, should know enough to control insomnia when its cause is so simple that hygienic methods may be made available. The Insomnia of children, it seems to me, is largely due to disturbed digestion conditions, such conditions arising from improper food, too rapid eating, the presence of ascarides or unusual excitement in school or in the social life, and I use the words social life advisedly because children are so many times over-excited, from the habit parents have of exhibiting their cleverness and from the fact that this exhibition taxes resources when they are at their very best ebb. The child has a right to conservation of nervous force. The fewer people to whom he is introduced the better, and the child should never be "shown off." Yet I am not a woman who belittles social observances, and I would have every child become the friend of all the members of the household. -Julia Holmes Smith, M.D. in the Pilgrim for November.