Medicine: Sleepers

Sleep has, next to The Weather, probably been humanity's greatest source of conversation. ''How did you sleep last night?"; "Where are you going to sleep?"; etc. etc. Periodic attempts are made to find out something about Sleep. Last week from Colgate University, Hamilton, N. Y., came news of another sleep investigation, timed to publicize a book on the subject.*

Dr. Donald Anderson Laird, 32-year-old director of this Baptist University's psychological laboratory, kept eight students up all night. They studied, played games, held a mock session of the U. S. Senate. Their reactions were studied and charted the following morning.

The next night they were tucked in bed, allowed 13 hours of sleep. More tests were conducted after that. Observations: after the 13-hour sleep, faculties of memory and concentration were restored almost to normal; emotional reactions were below par; those who had less difficulty in staying awake were most fatigued; in all night poker games, players should relax between hands; after sleeping the students were 50% more fatigued than they would have been with two nights' sleep.

Dr. Laird of Colgate has made a sleep-habit survey of 509 distinguished U. S. men, learned some of their ways of putting themselves to sleep: sticking feet out from under covers, straining eyes, random thinking, repeating Christian names, plans for an ideal home, extracting square roots, eating onions, praying. Of those questioned, only 2% used alcohol to induce sleep; half of them were distinguished college professors.