LECTURE XXVI.

INSOMNIA-BEDTIME HUNGER. SHALL THE AGED ADOPT THIS METHOD?

My Friends the Readers :

We meet this morning to consider some questions raised by many of you, and also to bring this series of lectures to a close. I have been pleased with the closeness with which you have followed me through each one, and especially pleased that I have been called upon to consider questions you have raised with a view to draw out more fully whatever of light I might have as to points of seeming importance not duly elaborated.

Since my last lecture I have been consulted by a divine of great learning and eminence who has been growing in the grace of a better physical life for several months, and who is to grow on for some years to come, as to insomnia and bedtime hunger.

In the consideration of this question I shall reiterate as little as possible points already gone over, and state some things as physiological facts with something of a "thus-saith-the-Lord" emphasis, rarely disbelieved.

You have been thoroughly convinced, every one of you, that hunger will come if you patiently wait for it, even in any case of sickness where death is not inevitable, and as evidence of this, and to add still more emphasis to that which I have abundantly furnished you, I am fortunate in having a remarkable case for another illustration.

The city missionary of Norwich, Conn., has a son in his fifth year whose appetite began to fail in 1893, with a resulting languor and indisposition to be about in the active sports of one of his years. He was duly treated medicinally without. avail. The symptoms so developed that he entered the year 1894 with a stomach that habitually ejected all meals some time after eating. This eccentric stomach was duly treated with all the remedies apparently indicated, by both schools of medical practice (homeopathic and regular), but with not one hint of relief. There was no hunger, but still the feeding went on with the highest science of dietetics duly applied. The month of June came, the boy was merging rapidly to the skeleton condition. His parents had become resigned to the death that seemed inevitable, but it is human in all cases to keep on trying until the chill of death actually comes.

There remained one more effort; the boy was duly enwrapped, and the father started with the wasted form to an office where there was to be a general consultation of physicians. By a chance, a mere chance, he met my friend, the publisher, who at once inquired into the case.

Now it so happened that my friend had, as you have been told, the experience of the case of Dr. Alexander, who, reduced to ninety-seven pounds, was enjoined to go upon a fast until hunger should come, no matter how many days it might require. He had seen this man actually gain strength on his fast of eight days, with a marked decline of symptoms; he had seen an appetite regained that came habitually at the same time every day with the precision of a chronometer, and he was bold enough, such was his faith, to advise that the boy be taken back home and be permitted to rest, free from all importunities, until Nature herself should ask, in

unmuffled tones, for what was needed to restore the waste due to the wreckage of enforced feeding.

The father was persuaded, the boy had four days of such rest as he had not known since he became ill, when, lo there was a call, not for chemically-prepared food, but for beefsteak! It was given; it was duly digested, and the life was saved. From thence on there was no trouble.

This boy had suffered a living death week after week, month after month, and yet, at most, always within four days of a beefsteak appetite.

The following is the statement of the boy's father :

In June, 1894, my son had become reduced to a mere skeleton, and he suffered so much from soreness that changing his clothes was refrained from as much as possible, and it was necessary for him to rest on a pillow whenever he was taken out for a drive. All hope and apparently all reason for hope was gone, but there remained just one more thing to be done, a consultation of several physicians. But while tenderly bearing the wasted form along the crowded streets for this purpose, by the merest chance, the chance of a half a minute perhaps, the apparently absurd suggestion was met that the starved boy should be taken back home and be put upon a fast until hunger for substantial food should come. My supreme faith in the man who made the suggestion and the abundant external evidences in support of the faith within him was sufficient to turn me about-and my son was raised from the dead.

Signed,

GEO. W. SWAN.

Dr. Alexander spent four years of his life in his home slowly wasting away with not one morsel of food

taken with relish, only praying that he might be so blest as to die, that he might be relieved from the pangs of a living death-and yet all the while, clearly, safely, within nine days of a beefsteak appetite !

My friend, the publisher, spent eight years of his life eating three meals daily when they could be enforced, hunting, hunting, ever hunting, for an appetite that could not be found in a tireless search through the old world, that could not be found among the hills. and mountains of his native country, and all the while clearly, safely, easily within three days of such an appetite as was never exceeded in the lustiest days of his youth!

Ah, readers, how wonderful "Nature's bill of fare for the sick," whereby it is absolutely safe, in any kind of a case, to await Nature's demand for food until it can be taken with such relish that eating becomes a luxury!

In November, 1894, I had the pleasure of seeing the little boy who, from his first relished meal, had been able to eat from thence two substantial meals daily, and he had all the weight and firmness of muscle, all the health and cheer and activity that normal health could make possible in his case.

I also had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Alexander, who rode across the country twenty miles to tell me the story of a life saved. He had gained nineteen pounds. Said he "For twenty-five years I had been eating with no appetite or a very poor appetite; since that first hearty meal after the eight days' fast, I have not failed of one keenly-relished meal every day," and the ruddy skin, the bright eyes, the beaming expression were more eloquent than any words he could utter.

For ten days I was the guest of my publisher, and the results in his case and in his family seemed an

abundant reward for the years of posing in my native city as a conspicuous target for all the powers of language in ridicule, in epithet, in denouncement, while trying to unfold to my fellow-citizens those physiological laws involved in the culture and maintenance of health, which, duly observed, was to make each and all happier, longer-lived, and therefore stronger physically, morally and mentally. But the day of ridicule is over.

From the first case of a life saved each has been a potent influence in the saving of other lives; the method has gone from one suffering friend to another suffering friend, from one family to another family, until at last I may walk my ways along the streets, as the instigator and a promoter of a revolution that will never go backward, because experience has proved, will prove, that it is based upon a larger compliance with those laws whereby we live, move and have our being.

Now I want to assure you who are the most thoughtful of my readers, whose lives are most governed by reason, that bedtime hunger is never to be indulged. You will always take that second meal so long before you enter your beds that your stomachs shall have that same rest during the entire night that shall be granted all else that needs resting. And when for any reason the second meal is not duly handled, and there results bedtime hunger, you will always find an absence of it in the morning and will be glad you did not indulge it.

It is very true, however, that you will get to sleep sooner and sleep longer, if you do indulge the symptom; but there will be more of torpor than of restful sleep, you will always awaken with a feeling of exhaustion such as occurs in after-dinner naps.