As a hint regarding the effect of a stimulating and excessive diet upon persons of unsound mind, I subjoin a brief note taken during the trial of the most celebrated lunatic of modern times: “Guiteau’s appetite is quite as remarkable as his insolence. He has breakfast served in his room at the court-house about nine o’clock, and usually consumes at this meal a pound of steak, nine buckwheat cakes, three roasted potatoes, and five cups of coffee. Then, at half-past twelve, he gorges himself on roast beef and mutton.”]
A certain class of wakeful patients are benefited by the practice of eating shortly before bedtime, when this right has been earned by sufficient restriction during the day. To make this the fourth, or even the third meal, however, is almost certain to increase the difficulty at last. The victim of sleepless nights often finds himself quite overcome with drowsiness after his midday meal. If then he could throw himself upon the bed he would have no time to “count,” or even think of such a device for putting himself to sleep. He was wide awake before lunch, and but for the habit of taking it, could have finished the day better without than with this out-of-season sleeping potion. Let him take the hint, eat his second and last meal, a sufficient one of plain food, in the evening after fully rested, and, thus equipped, go to bed directly, or after an hour or two of agreeable, but non-taxing, social converse. He must avoid every form of artificial stimulation——tea, coffee, wine, beer, tobacco. To breathe the atmosphere of an office, hotel, or smoking-car, for any considerable period, is no better, may be worse, than a moderate indulgence at first-hand in the open air.