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The Commoner
A
VOLUME 8; NUMBER U
16
5
A!
m
FOUR HOURS SLEEP ENOUGII,
SAYS WIZARD EDISON
"Aftor all, sloop is only a habit;
thoro is nothing to provo that mon
really need it," Thomas A. Edison
said tho othor day to a Now York
Times reporter. "Men ilrst learned
to sloop because when darkness came
thoy had nothing else to do. Through
tho ages their descendants, doing
likowiso, mado sloop a custom a
matter of course But if mon had
always lived in a land of perpetual
light and sunshine, I don't suppose
wo would sleep at all."
Tho famous inventor backed up
tho idea by telling of a practical test.
It was not his own ability to live
with littlo sloqp. As is well-known,
Mr. Edison limits himself to four or
fivo hours' sleep in the twenty-four.
Ho Baid ho had not slept more than
Ave hours in a night for forty years.
In much of that time he averaged
only four hours. Nor was it tho case
of his wlfo, which he mentioned in
cidentally. Mrs. Edison, ho said,
sloops only fivo hours In a night, and
tho habit seems to agreo with her.
Tho test ho described involved nearly
100 mon of avorago physique In Mr.
Edison's laboratory.
"Tho tost was mado," Mr. Edison
Baid, "while I was experimenting
"with my assistants at Menlo Park. I
limited each man to four hours' sleep'
in tho twenty-four. Thoy kept it up
for two years. It did not seom to
hurt them."
"Were they aided by special diet
or treatment to make up for tho loss
of sleep?
"No, except that there were four
meals, a day instead of three. Wo
bad breakfast, dinner and supper in
the daytime as usual, and an extra
suppor at midnight. There was
nothing peculiar about tho food. The
meals consisted of tho meats, veg
etables, bread and tho rest which or
dinary people eat.
"Each man was assigned to four
hours in the twenty-four in which he
was entitled to sleep. When the time
came he went to our bunkhouao near
the laboratory, tumbled Into one of I
'
FORWARD, MARCH!
, - I ' ' ' ' IIIWT-11IIIMM llTin !
1
self no more than five hours sleep
in the twonty-four. Does it hurt her?
Well" this with a satisfied laugh
"my wife looks so young she might
bo her daughter's sister.
"Is it not said that sleep is re
quired to restore the depleted tissues
of the body?"
"Can you prove it?" -Mr. Edison
replied. "I don't think so,"
In Mr. Edison's opinion, a careful
to eat just enough food to keep up
a man's strength so that there would
be nothing left to nourish the pois
onous growth in the lower intestines."
tho bunks and was sound asleep in a
moment. He didn't get his full four
hours either, for wo would call him
a strlfle ahead of time. I suppose he
slept throe hours and 99 per cent of
tno last hour.
"What was the effect of cutting
down their sleep? For tho first
week or so it was hard very hard.
They would come back to work limp
and heavy footed, their eyes some
times looking as if they had been
drinking heavily. The old habit of
slooplng which men had followed for
so many ages was telling on them.
Tho habit was hard to break. But
after the first week or so, the reduc
tion In their hours of sleep seemed
to make no difference in their work
or mental capacity. Indeed, they
gained in agility. They seemed to
bo lighter on their feet.
"There is this significant point in
such a tost: The men Who sleDt four
hours in the twenty-four had abso
lute rest. Tho person who sleeps too
much not only experiences a heavy
feeling in tho body, but usually does
not enjoy absolute unconsciousness
while he sleeps.
"I remember the case of my wife
some years ago. I was sleeping four
hours a night no more. She said
she wanted 'her full eight hours' '
sleep. In that eight hours she would
dream. She would wake up several
times of a night. Her rest was by
no means complete.
"I persuaded her to give only five
hours to sleep in tho twonty-four.
She trained herself to do so. Her
rest became intense, absolute, with
out dreams or moments of awaken
ing. Ever sines Phe has allowed her-
dlet was more Important than sleep
in preserving a man's strength and
preventing the decay of old ago.
"Professor Metchnikof's idea Is a
big one in this connection," he con
tinued. "Professor Metohnikof, you
know, Is a biologist at tho Pasteur
Institute, in Paris. His theory is
that sour milk preserves life and
has much to do with eradicating dis
ease from the body.
"Old age, as he sees it, is caused
by the presence of poisonous bacilli
in tho human system which continues
to increase as the years go on until
the toxic conditions cause death.
There is a saying that a person will
live five times the number of years
he or she has attained when fully de
veloped. But there's nothing in that
idea. With what facts does Professor
Motchnikof back up his theory?
"He found a district In the moun
tains of Bavaria where the number
of aged people was very unusual.
Some of them lived to be 104, or
oven 105, years old. In tho Ba
varian villages It was not exceptional
to find three or four who had lived
to bo 100.
"He found that the diet of these
old people consisted largely of sour
milk, Tho samo longevity did not
exist i i neighboring districts wherq
tho milk was not so much used. Dr.
Motchnikof formulated this theory:
"The sour milk entering the Intes
tines the reservoir of the body
created a lactic acid in which the
poisonous, bacilli could not long ex
ist. Tho presence of this hostile acid
gradually expelled the poison. The
system free" of them, the body con
tinued in an ideal condition would be
PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH
In the year 1G83 a small party of
Mennonltes came across the water
and settled at what was 'soon after
and Is still called Germantown, says
Dr. De Long in Old Penn. Persecu
tion at home and the prospect of an
undisturbed right to worship God ac
cording to the dictates of their own
consciences turned the faces of
thousands and tens of thousands of
tnese Germans to America and
nerved them, for the awful horrors
of the long voyage in loathsome and
often disease-infected ships. Gradu
ally the country beyond Germantown
was settled by them. The name
Dutch, in the truo meaning of the
word, is a misnomer as applied to
these pioneer settlers or their de
scendants since thoy came from
southern Germany along the Rhine
and not from Holland. Their ver
nacular is a dialect similar to that
of the lower Rhine, with the addition
more and more Enelish words
of
from year to year, until at the pres
ent day those who speak the dialect
employ a great many English words.
even prefixing the German augment
to verbs in the preperfect and past
tenses, as gewalked, gepreachod, ge
lectured, etc. I behove that the same
race characteristics, tho same full
measure of patriotic devotion, the
same spirit of forbearance, the same
sterling virtues of thrift, honesty,
and sobriety, the same love of per
sonal, political, and religious liberty,
tho same respect for the domestic
virtues, the same simplicity of char
acter 'that were observed in the early
plexors are present in their de
scendants today.
While all this is true and some
thing to be proud of, but littlo can .
bo said in favor of the perpetuation
of the Pennsylvania-German dialect.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary
vitality of the vernacular, which has
survived the wreck of centuries, it is
gradually but surely disanDearing.
even from tho rustic communities.
Neither is this to bo regretted.
Several factors are contributory to
the persistence of this dialect. They
are a people quiet and simple in their
taste, as a rule absorbed in the peace
ful vocations of life, diffident and
more or less clannish; they have not
traveled much, and have, therefore,
not come much in contact with their
neighbors of other laneuaKes. Tho
eariy settlers brought with them the
schoolmaster, and only the German
language was taught until a compara
tively short time ago.
Many of the older people, although
they understand English and are able
to speak it in a way, read only Ger
man books and newspapers today.
Letter writing and the keeping of
books and records are done in Eng
lish. Today, however, no German is
taught except in tho higher grades,
although the Pennsylvania Dutch dia
lect holds sway in the ordinary talk
in the schoolyard, the street, or
wherever men gather. The legal
business was always transacted in the
English language, though many men
were unable to read the deeds to
their own properties. Even now oc
casionally an interpreter is required
to translate the testimony of a wit
ness in our courts. However, in a
generation or two, I venture to pre
dict, very little of this dialect wili
be heard. How long it will take un
til the characteristic accent is lost
may be hard to say. In the country
districts the religious services are !
most invariably in the German lan
guage, while in the towns and vil
lages, where they have evening ser
vices, the latter are conducted in the
English language; as are ail Sunday
schools and literary and political
meetings. Washington Herald.
c
