Psychotherapy Part 76

Occupation of Mind.--The most important feature of the treatment of depression of mind is to secure somehow such occupation as will catch the attention and arouse the interest. This is not always an easy matter. How effective it is, however, can be best judged from what one notes of the effect of such things as physical pain or great solicitude for someone else besides themselves. I have known a mother, whose fits of "the blues" were getting deeper and the intervals growing shorter to be roused from her condition when all means had failed by the elopement of a daughter who had been partly pushed into leaving because things had become so unpleasant around home {644} during her mother's depression, and any change seemed welcome. On the other hand, I had a doctor friend who felt quite alarmed about his growing depression and who even had some fears lest, if it continued to deepen, he might commit suicide. He was completely lifted out of his increasing depression by the occurrence of pneumonia in his boy of sixteen. The pneumonia did not end by crisis but by lysis and for weeks he had very little sleep. He confessed that the intense preoccupation of mind had completely driven away his blues and had even done much to relieve him of various digestive symptoms to which he had previously attributed his depression.

Again and again I have known men who, in the midst of prosperity, found life dull and rather hard to bear, and who just as soon as a crisis in their affairs compelled them to pay attention to other things than themselves and the state of their feelings, grew better mentally and physically. It seems almost a contradiction in terms to say that it is the man of little occupation, as a rule, or at least of occupations that are not insistent, who is likely to be troubled with insomnia, while the very busy man, especially the man busy not about one or two narrow interests, but about a number, is seldom so bothered. Nothing contributes more to the depression of mind than loss of sleep or supposed loss of sleep. Even women who, while living in ease and comfort, had much to complain of as regards depression, often lose entirely their tendencies to "the blues" or have fits of them at much longer intervals, when necessity compels them either to earn their own living or, at least, to occupy themselves much more with absolutely necessary duties.

_Provision of Occupation_.--It is a hard matter to create such occupation of mind as will be satisfactory. Patients have to be tried by various suggestions. The tendency to periodic fits of depression deep enough to be called to the physician's attention is much more noticeable in recent years than it used to be, and seems to me at least to bear a corresponding ratio to the decrease of home life. Home duties usually mean joys and of late there has been a neglect of the joys of life while seeking its pleasures. Certain phases of city life are responsible for much dissatisfaction with existence and depression of spirits. Most of the women who live in apartment hotels have practically no serious occupation of mind. They need not get up if they do not feel quite right or quite rested--and who after the age of forty ever does feel quite all right in the morning hours unless sleep has been in the open air? Nothing is so likely to start a day of depression than failure to get up promptly, lounging around with forty winks here and there, reading in bed, and the like. If breakfast is taken in bed, then some reading indulged in, and then some sleeping, and only an hour or two of dawdling around comes before lunch, that meal is not properly enjoyed and the afternoon is started badly; unless there is some special diversion of mind depression is almost sure to get the upper hand.

_Place of Children in Psychotherapy_.--Where there are children the interests are much more urgent and there is little time for such preoccupation with self as gives one "that tired feeling." We are very interesting to ourselves, but just as soon as we have no other subject to occupy us than ourselves we soon grow very tired of the subject.

Children are the best interest that one can think of, for women particularly. When they have none of their own an interest in orphan asylums, in day nurseries, in various children's {645} inst.i.tutions, and, above all, in the adoption of a child, will do more than anything else to relieve the tendency to blues. Of late years the adoption of children has been much less frequent than used to be the case in childless families, and doctors see the result in mental depression.

Children are a great care, but they are a great blessing to women, and while the present trend of social life eliminates them as far as possible, this elimination, beginning with their relegation to nurses when they are infants, to nursemaids as they grow a little older, and then to the kindergarten up to six years of age, far from adding to comfort rather increases the discomfort of many mothers. Nature takes her revenge. The reason why the mothers of past generations could stand the suffering that they must have borne with patience before gynecology developed to relieve them, was that they had their children around them, and their minds and their hearts and their hands were so full that they had no time to think of themselves, to brood over their ills, and consequently these troubled them much less than would otherwise have been the case.

Delicate mothers really interested in their children undoubtedly suffer very little compared to delicate women who are alone in life, and what is thus true of the mother is true also of those who have the care of children. It is not alone a satisfaction of the maternal instinct, but it is an occupation of mind and heart with cares for little ones. Other people's children serve just as good a therapeutic purpose, if only their necessities are imposed on the attendant. The reason why women in religious orders have such happy peaceful lives and are happier in spite of a routine of life that would seem to be fatal to happiness, is that their minds are filled with the interests of others, every moment of their time is occupied, and, above all, they have to care for children, the ailing, the poor, sometimes the vicious, who make many demands on them, many calls on their sympathies and keep them from thinking about themselves.

_Occupation with Living Things_.--After occupation with human beings the most important therapeutic factor against periods of depression is occupation with living things of various kinds. Horseback riding is an excellent remedy for the blues and the outside of a horse in the old axiom is literally very good for the inside of man or woman. There is a sympathy between man and animal that in itself means much, but the most important element is the absolute impossibility of preoccupation with oneself and one's little troubles and worries while one is trying to manage a somewhat restive animal. If the horse, however, is old and very quiet--so that one can throw the reins on his neck and allow him to jog on for himself, then horseback riding may mean very little.

Where the care of the animal is entirely taken off the rider's shoulders by a groom who brings him to a particular place and takes him afterwards, then, also, much of the benefit of horseback riding is lost. Care for other animals as well as the horse is of great service and especially is this true if the owners feel the duty of exercising the animals. Many a downhearted person finds that to take an animal out for a stroll will do much to lift the clouds of depression.

With the disappearance of children from the families of the better-to-do cla.s.ses, pet dogs have grown in favor mainly because of this influence. They awaken sympathies and so keep people from thinking too much about themselves, For many an elderly woman who is alone in the world her dogs or her {646} cats or a combination of both are the best possible remedies for depression. At times it will be found necessary to prescribe them. There is no better way to get an elderly person to go out at certain times than to have them feel that their pets need exercise.

_Garden Cures_.--After animals the next best thing is the care of a garden. Here once more human sympathies with living things are aroused and it is easier to cultivate a forgetfulness of self while cultivating flowers and plants. Growing plants do not arouse the interest that growing animals do, but still they have advantages over things that do not vary, and their growth is a subject of day-to-day interest and the effect on them of vicissitudes of the weather arouses feelings of solicitude which help to dissipate the little insistent cares for self that depress. The care of a garden is the very best thing for the "pottering old." Younger people are too impatient to get much benefit out of a garden, but after middle life many an hour of depression will be saved in the care of plants.

_Intellectual Occupations_.--It might be expected that intellectual occupations would serve to brush away "the blues" for educated people.

They are perfectly capable of doing so, but they must be of the kind that grip attention and must be undertaken seriously, usually with an appeal quite apart from mere cultural interests. Hobbies of various kinds, especially the making of collections, even of such trivial things as stamps, will often serve the purpose of distraction from gloomier thoughts. Unfortunately, a hobby cannot be created all at once and usually does not take a strong enough hold to be available for mental therapeutic purposes unless it was acquired when the person was comparatively young and has been indulged in for many years.

Reading and study utterly fail unless there is some end in view apart from the reading and study itself. The reading of novels and newspapers is particularly likely to be a failure. The gloomier thoughts obtrude themselves in the midst of the reading and very often what is read proves suggestive of melancholic thoughts and all the time the mind and the person are not occupied seriously enough to push away the state of depression which exists. The mind must be interested, not merely occupied superficially, or the depression will continue.

It might be thought that the reading of books that concerned human suffering might have a similar appeal to that to be obtained from real touch with human suffering. This is true to a certain extent when the books concern real and not fict.i.tious suffering. For this reason the trials and hards.h.i.+ps of travelers at the North and South poles or in the heart of tropical Africa--Nansen and Peary and Stanley and Livingston--have all been excellent therapeutic agents. The stories of mountain climbers have something of the same effect. Adventures in Alaska and in the Far North, especially, come in the same category.

Novels, however, even though they use the same material, soon fail to have a corresponding effect. Even when the novel does touch the emotions deeply it is p.r.o.ne to make the reader forget the suffering around him and does not prove a good diversion from his own feelings.

In his play, "The Night Asylum," Maxim Gorky, the Russian novelist and playwright, brings this out very well. One of his characters, a young scrubwoman, wears her fingers to the bone during the day for a miserable pittance and sleeps in a squalid night lodging house, yet this comparatively young creature, {647} crouched near the only light in the room, sheds tears over the imaginary sufferings of the fict.i.tious people that she reads about, while the real human suffering around her fails entirely to arouse her sympathy or affect her emotions, except to anger her if lodgers come in between her and the light or when the complaints made by some of those who are suffering around her annoy and distract her from her reading.

In younger folks, study, provided there is some definite object to be attained by it, is often helpful. Correspondence schools are of value by setting a definite purpose before the mind. In a number of cases I have found that the suggestion to make translations from a foreign language when the patient knew that language even tolerably well, afforded excellent relief from that over-occupation with self which was the real cause of the depression. There are many people who know enough French to be able to translate fairly well and there are many articles and books a translation of which may at least be submitted to editors and often proves available for publication. To have some such end as this in view is of itself one of the best means that can be provided for these people to relieve their tendency to depression.

Occasionally even the suggestion to write stories may prove helpful.

One hesitates to add to the number of story-writers in this country, but it may be remembered as a last resort. I know at least two people saved from themselves by even a very moderate success as writers of short stories.

_Consolation from History_.--Perhaps the most serious thing about depression is the feeling of those afflicted by it that they are singular in this respect and that other people who seem gay never have depressed states. There is probably no one who has not periods of depression. They may not be very deep and "the blues" may be only of a light tinge, but they are there. The higher the intelligence, as a rule, the more tendency there is to feelings of discouragement and depression at intervals when one is not occupied. Those who have the artistic temperament and the striving after the expression of the beautiful as they see it, whether it be in art or in letters or in the betterment of humanity, usually suffer more than others because they realize poignantly their failure to reach their ideals. This is well ill.u.s.trated by the experience of writers and artists. As a rule, most men and women look forward to the completion of any intellectual work with confidence that after it is finished they will have a period of rest and peace. Commonly just the opposite is true. The completion of any work leaves one with a sense of dissatisfaction with what has been done, for no man of real intelligence ever thinks that he has so realized his ideals as to be satisfied, and only the foolishly conceited fail to feel the many defects that there are in their work.

There is abundance of evidence, however, that it is not alone artists and writers who thus feel the hollowness of life and the tears there are in things. Many of the men who have accomplished great things in science and in politics have been p.r.o.ne to times of depression.

Virchow told me there were moments when life seemed very empty to him and that he had to shake off feelings of depression in order to be able to go on with his work. At one time in the sixth decade of his life he suffered considerably from what we would now call neurasthenic symptoms, gave up his medical work and spent a long time with Schliemann in the Troad. His presence was valuable to the excavator in his work at Troy, and the change gave Virchow back his health.

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Even more striking is what we know of Von Moltke, who seemed in many ways to have an ideally happy life. He had had the fulfillment of all his desires or, at least, the fruition of all his hopes, and the successful accomplishment of what he worked for beyond what is usually given to man. He had come to be one of the most highly respected men of Europe and was the subject of veneration on the part of his own German people and of intimate affection from his sovereign, who loaded him with honors. He was a man who had probably no enemies and many, many firm friends. It was said that "he could keep silence in eleven languages" and so he had avoided most of the pitfalls of life. His domestic life was ideally happy and his letters to his wife for over fifty years read like those of a lover, before all his great battles his last thought and written word was for her, after them his first thought and message was for her. In spite of this, towards the end of his life, when the question of reincarnation was a subject of discussion in Berlin and it was brought particularly to his attention, he declared that looking back on his career, in spite of all its good fortune, there seemed to him to be so many chances in life, so many possible sources of failure, so many springs of discouragement, that he would prefer not to have to live again. Surely, if anyone, he might be expected to be ready to take the chances of re-incarnation after such happy experiences of life, yet he was not. Such an expression could only come from a man who had looked depression often in the face, who had shaken off the blue devils and who knew that even the joy of success was followed by the gloom of uncertainty as to the future and solicitude as to the real significance of accomplishment.

_Literature and Life_.--We have many examples of this tendency to depression that come to the literary man in the lives and letters of distinguished writers that have been published so frequently in recent years. Perhaps one of the most striking is to be found in the life of Robert Bulwer Lytton, the second Lord Lytton, so well known as a diplomatist in European circles and throughout the English-speaking world as a poet, under the pen name of "Owen Meredith." [Footnote 51] It might be thought that Lytton would be one of the men safely harbored from storms of depression and discouragement, for his life seemed ideally situated to enable him to get the best out of himself without worry or dissipation of energy in occupation with mere personal matters. His father had made a distinguished success as a literary man and a politician, had been raised to the peerage and the son began life with every possible advantage. He made a distinguished success in literature so that he even converted his father to praise him and as a diplomatist he occupied nearly every important post in English diplomacy and had hosts of friends all over the world.

[Footnote 51: Personal and Literary Letters of Lord Lytton, edited by Lady Betty Balfour. New York, 1909.]

It is all the more surprising, then, to have many pa.s.sages in his letters refer to periodic attacks of depression. He says, for instance, "My physical temperament has a great tendency to beget blue devils and when those imps lay siege to my soul they recall those words of Schopenhauer's and say to me 'thou art the man.'" Perhaps the price that the artistic temperament pays for the satisfaction that it gets out of life in other directions is this occasional tendency {649} to depression because achievement does not equal aspiration. Certainly the price often seems excessive to those who have to pay it. In the same letter to his daughter, Lytton continues:

When my blue devils are cast out, and I recover sanity of spirits, then I say to myself just what you say to me in your letter--that the main thing is not to do but to be; that the work of a man is rather in what he is than in what he does; that one may be a very fine poet yet a very poor creature; that my life has at least been a very full one, rich in varied experiences, touching the world at many points; that had I devoted it exclusively to the cultivation of one gift, though that the best, I might have become a poet as great at least as any of my contemporaries, but that this is by no means certain to me for my natural inclination to, and unfitness for, all the practical side of life are so great that I might just as likely have lapsed into a mere dreamer; that the discipline of active life and forced contact with the world has been specially good for me, perhaps providential, and that what I have gained from it as a man may be more than compensation for whatever I may have lost by it as an artist.

It is surprising to think of a man of this kind becoming so depressed by the death of a son that all the world and the meaning of life took on a somber hue for him. In 1871 Lord Lytton lost a young boy by a very painful illness which had probably been more painful for sympathetic onlookers than for the patient himself. The incident proved sufficient, however, to make the father think that there could not be a beneficent Providence ruling over the world. He felt sure that somehow G.o.d's power must be shortened, if such suffering, for which he could see no reason, had to be permitted. He was much depressed after this and never was quite the same in his outlook upon the world and the significance of life. It was easy to understand that this was due rather to his character than his intellect, but it ill.u.s.trates forcibly how much a deeply intelligent man may be affected by something that seems after all, only the course of nature.

It is sometimes surprising to find from the life stories of men how often those who would be thought least likely to suffer from periodical depression were victims of it. Few Americans in our time have apparently had a more satisfying career than that of James Russell Lowell, a successful author as a young man, then a successful editor, a teacher whom his students appreciated very much, and in later life the subject of many honors and such honors as provided him with splendid opportunities for the exhibition of his special genius.

He would seem to be the last who should suffer from depression. His post as Minister to Spain gave him an opportunity which he took magnificently to study the great Spanish authors and to store up material for writing about them. As Minister to England few men were so popular. He was constantly in demand for occasional addresses and his special style enabled him to respond to these demands with brilliant success. Here in America no great occasion was complete without Lowell. In spite of all this that would surely seem ample to satisfy the aspirations of any man, Lowell was often depressed and sometimes even talked about the possibility of suicide. Life seemed at times very empty to him. The story of the lives of such men, if made familiar to patients, proves a source of consolation, for it makes them realize that they are not alone in their experiences, that depression at some times is the lot of man, and that very few people are without the sphere of its influence.

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Depression an Incident, not a State.--This suggestion may, in the case of some of those inclined to longer periods of depression, lead to indulgence in the luxury of being depressed and so putting off the doing of things. It must be pointed out, however, that just inasmuch as depression has this effect it is pathological. It seems to be natural to man to suffer from periods of discouragement and depression which keep him from devoting himself too persistently to lines of work that may be insignificant and make him take cognizance of the real values of what he is doing. Depression, however, that continues after the recognition of this takes place is morbid and must be actively resisted. Just inasmuch as depression precedes and prepares patients for a reaction, it is an incident in practically all lives. Indulged in as a luxury, it is abnormal.

Suggestive Treatment--The most important thing for patients who suffer from periodic depression is to make them understand that this state of mind, far from being personal to them or very rare, or even uncommon, is an extremely frequent experience of men and women. There are certain men and a few women eminently occupied with the external life, busy with many things, though often they are trivial enough, and even when they are important, significant only in a financial or a social way, but meaning nothing for the great realities of life, who seem during their younger active years to escape the periodical attacks of depression that come to most people and come almost without exception to people who think seriously. Some of the best thoughts and inspirations of men come to them as the result of the serious mood that follows an attack of depression. A b.u.t.terfly existence lacks these sources of inspiration. Far from being objectionable then, attacks of depression, if not allowed to proceed too far, and if kept from paralyzing activity, prove to be intervals when life values are seriously weighed and when a proper estimation of such values is come to. Men are p.r.o.ne without such interruptions to get too interested in trivial concerns that seem to them important because they are occupied with them to the exclusion of other ideas, but that prove to be of no real import when seen on the background of a certain hollowness that there is in human life, if lived merely for its own sake.

The occurrence of periodical depression is a part of the mystery of life and it affords us a better opportunity to get a little closer to the heart of the mystery than almost anything else. It is out of such periods that men have risen "on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things" and have even risen to the highest that there is in life. Geniuses have nearly always had deep periods of depression, but in the midst of them have read new meanings into life and have read the lessons of humanity in their own souls better than at any other time. Depression throws a man back on himself and makes him think deeper than in his mind--in what has been called his heart. "The fascination of trifles obscures the good things in life" are words of old-time wisdom and men are weaned from this by fits of depression that are really moods of precious dissatisfaction with their work inasmuch as it falls short of the best accomplishment. Without periodic depression, apparently, a man never gets as close to the heart of life as he otherwise would. Far from being an unwelcome visitant, it should be rather welcome as a stimulus to the possibility of further study of self and the realities of life.

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CHAPTER VII

INSOMNIA

To the minds of many people insomnia is one of the most serious ills to which human nature is heir. Most of this quite false impression is due to the sensational cultivation of dreads with regard to insomnia by newspapers and in general conversation. If we were to credit such impressions, there is a certain number of unfortunates who, for some unknown reason, find it impossible to sleep and who, night after night, drag out the weary hours wooing sleep that does not come, until when daylight dawns they are in despair, distracted by lack of rest.

This is presumed to occur night after night, until finally the worn-out mind succ.u.mbs to the intolerable anguish of being kept constantly on the rack of wakefulness and the patient becomes insane or saves himself from that by suicide. No wonder, then, that many a one of these patients takes to the use of habit-forming drugs to produce sleep. These, though effective only to a small degree, soothe him for the time, but finally render him such a wreck that there is not even will power enough for him to take his own life and end his intolerable suffering.

Such gruesome pictures of the awful effects of insomnia run rife and produce dreads in the community until just as soon as the ordinary nervous supersensitive person loses an hour or two of sleep two or three nights in a month, he begins to conjure up the specter of insomnia with its awful terrors and still more awful possibilities, and begins to bewail the fate that has chosen him as an unfortunate victim. This exaggerated dread that slight losses of sleep, for which there are often excellent reasons, will develop into an incurable condition of persistent wakefulness has more to do than any other single factor with the production of the state called insomnia which is, however, never half as bad as it is pictured.

Absolute Sleeplessness.--A certain number of patients insist that they sleep very little at night and some tell their friends and even their physicians quite ingenuously that they sleep none at all, and that this has been the case with them for a prolonged period. Practically every physician has heard such stories, and at the beginning of his professional career has usually wondered how the patients continued to live and enjoy reasonably good health in spite of the lack of absolutely necessary brain cell rest. After the physician has the opportunity to investigate some of these stories he understands them better. Patients in hospital, who insist that they are wakeful all the night, prove usually when faithfully watched by a nurse to be wakeful for an hour or two at the beginning of the night and then to sleep for hours at a time, and all of them sleep for intervals more or less prolonged, though they may wake a number of times during the night and may think that they have not been asleep because they hear the clock regularly or some other recurring noise. It is improbable that patients ever spend several nights in succession without sleep and their story is only an index of the persuasion that they are under that they do not sleep, though they are having so many thoroughly restful intervals that their brain cells suffer but little from {652} the need of sleep. _Indeed, the principle source of nervous wear and tear for them consists in their persuasion that they do not sleep and the resultant impelling suggestion that a breakdown must before long be inevitable._

Individual Differences.--There are too many safeguards in nature's ordinary dealings with human beings for us to think that people can pa.s.s many nights absolutely without rest. Brain cells may apparently be very wakeful, they may be quite ready to take up at once and seemingly without a break trains of thought interrupted sometime before, yet somehow they succeed in obtaining their needed rest. In this matter, as is well known, though it needs to be emphasized again for the benefit of nervous individuals, different people have very different needs. Some require many continuous hours of sleep or they soon begin to have symptoms of nervous exhaustion. Others live on only with s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep at intervals, or with interrupted sleep during a limited portion of the twenty-four hours, yet enjoy good health for many years. A few seem to be able to live in health and strength with but a few hours of sleep. It may possibly be thought that those who are living their lives with a small amount of sleep are drawing drafts on their future vital powers, and that what they make up in intensity of activity now by shortening sleep, they will discount by shortness of life. How utterly untrue this impression is, however, will be best understood from the fact that many of the men who have worked hardest and slept the least number of hours in the day, have lived to be eighty or even ninety years of age and some of them have even been centenarians.

Cell Rest.--The great differences in the brain cells of different individuals in what concerns sleep becomes more readily intelligible when we recall the extreme differences as regards the need of rest of the various cells in the same individual. While the brain cells seem to require for healthy life, as a rule, nearly one-third of the time, and a man who is constantly taking much less than eight hours of sleep is probably hindering rather than helping his productiveness, especially if his work is intellectual, there are cells in the body that need no such amount of rest as this. Peristaltic movements occur in the digestive tract almost constantly, with only short intervals, and these cells get their rest between their movements. Pulmonary cells and tissues must do the same thing, and are able to do it without any special strain being put on them. The extreme example of the lack of need for prolonged rest is found in the heart. Two-fifths of every second the cells of this organ have a rest during the diastole, but during the remaining three-fifths of every second for all of life they must not only be ready to work but actually engaged in it or serious symptoms ensue. The cells in the brain that subtend cardiac and respiratory activity must be even more able to do without rest, since their action is ceaseless during life. By a.n.a.logy with these it is not difficult to understand that the brain cells which are involved in consciousness should on occasion be able to stand prolonged periods of activity, or at least of wakefulness. Persistent wakefulness does not appeal to us as so surely destructive after this consideration.

Solicitude Over Sleep.--For those who are much disturbed by the loss of even slight amounts of sleep and who are p.r.o.ne to complain rather bitterly if they are not able to get more than five or six hours a night, I find it a useful preliminary to any more formal treatment of their so-called insomnia {653} to recall the examples of some of the great workers who succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng marvelously good work though they took much less sleep than the amount the patient secures, yet seems to think inadequate. In spite of such lack of sleep, these workers lived to advanced old age. There are many well-authenticated ill.u.s.trations of this in recent times. Perhaps the most striking testimony to the power of the human mind to continue work without requiring the refreshment of sleep, except for very short periods, is that of Humboldt, the great traveller, scientist writer and diplomat.

Max Muller, in his autobiography tells the story. It was when he himself was about forty. Humboldt said to him: "Ah! Max, when I was your age I had time to accomplish something, now I find that I must take at least five hours of sleep every night." At the moment Humboldt was over eighty. Muller said to him: "But, Your Excellency, how much sleep, then, did you take when you were my age?" "Oh!" he said, "I used to turn the light down, throw myself on the lounge for a couple of hours, and then get up and go on with my work again."

Humboldt, after a life full of the hardest kind of work of many kinds, lived well past ninety in the full vigor of his intellectual powers.

There are many other examples that might readily be quoted. The traditions of the University of Berlin contain many ill.u.s.trations of men who did very little sleeping, yet succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng an immense amount of work and lived far beyond the Psalmist's limit.

Virchow, whom I knew very well, did not take more than four or five hours of sleep on most nights in the year. He would be in the Lower House of the Prussian Legislature, which, like the House of Commons, holds its meetings late at night, until one A. M. or later and would be at his laboratory shortly after seven. There was a tradition at the University of Berlin in my time there of one of the older professors in the theological department who went to bed only every alternate night. He had a forty-eight-hour day for work with a seven-hour break.