Chapter I: Preface

The following pages are the first two of the chapters of “Contributions to Practical Medicine,” as they stand in the fourth edition, 1904, of that book. They include my lectures on the causes and treatment of insomnia, in the necessarily colloquial style in which they were uttered. For the convenience of my professional brethren, these chapters now are offered to them in a separate form in this little book. Every word has been revised and many additions have been made, by the fruits of later experience, for the sake of clearness, completeness, and precision; this has been done with hope of usefulness in medical practice, and with the aim of accuracy in diagnosis and success in therapeutics.

31, TEMPLE ROW,
BIRMINGHAM, 1904.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE CAUSES OF INSOMNIA.

The appetite of sleep.--The physiology of sleep.--Etiology
of insomnia.--Symptoms of insomnia.--Intrinsic
insomnia.--Varieties of intrinsic
insomnia.--Psychic insomnia.--Emotional
shock and prolonged mental strain as causes
of insomnia.--The nervous temperament.--Symptoms
of intrinsic insomnia.--Toxic
insomnia.--Insomnia from tobacco.--Alcoholic
insomnia.--Insomnia from tea or from coffee.--Gouty
insomnia.--Senile insomnia. 9

II. THE CURE OF INSOMNIA.

No “rule of thumb” cure.--Hypnotic drugs.--Risks
from hypnotics.--Causal treatment.--Bromide
of potassium.--Cure of anæmia.--Alcohol.--Carminatives.--Adjuvant
remedies.--Popular
remedies.--Rhythmic sleep.--Physical exercise.--Sunshine.--Monotonous
impressions.--Bedclothes.--Ventilation.--Food.--Cold.--Toxic
insomnia.--Senile insomnia. 47