Today ’s insomnia cures are slenderly more scientific than the back in the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . But they ’re also less interesting , which is why we ’ve rounded up some of the unearthly insomnia treatment reach down through the ages . From what to rub on your foundation , to what to describe your belly with , here are 6 bizarre prescription medicine for when you ’re threadbare of counting sheep .
1. Rub Your Feet in Dormouse Fat
In Elizabethan England , people who could n’t slumber would often rub dormouse fat onto the soles of their feet . Why dormouse and why feet has been lost to the ages , however , the dormouse has retained its snoozy prototype : The dormouse slept through most of the Mad Hatter ’s Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland .
2. A spoonful of Sea Slug Entrails
Most finish have their own folk remedy , usually involving intellectual nourishment , for putting insomniac to sleep . I remember when I was a footling girl , my mommy would make me hot chocolate when I could n’t kip . Little girls in Japan , however , might have sire a photographic plate full of sea slug entrails . In France , it could have been fried lolly and in places in the US , a raw onion plant .
3. Pay to Hear a Sleep Concert?
A Modern furore is sweeping Japan and while there ’s always a unexampled craze tangle Japan , this one may offer some Bob Hope to sleepless office workers . They ’re called sleep concert : essentially , you buy a ticket to the concert , plunk yourself down in a comfortable rear , and vagabond off . One such concert , titled " ambition : Good Sleep Concert,“ featured major Japanese musicians playing euphony that had been scientifically tested to make sleep ; a compact disc of the concert was afterwards sold and won Japan ’s twenty-second yearly Gold Disc Award for Best Instrumental Album of the year in 2008 .
4. Ancient Ambien
Sleepless Greeks and Egyptians used opium , typically merge with several other herbs that probably had no effect , to bring on eternal rest . The only trouble with opium is the highly addictive nature of the poppy - derived narcotic . But drugs have always played a part in help people catch some Z’s : Cannabis , typically smoked in cigarette chassis , was a democratic sleep aid up through the 19th century . Some , especially those in college or who maybe spent some time tour with the Grateful Dead , might say it still is . And when all else fails , there ’s the time - honored tradition of drinking until you legislate out .
5. Toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble
Potions have long been a part of the insomniac ’s medicine cabinet . shadow made from valerian root , mandrake tooth root , and lettuce seeds are a few of the debatably helpful but in the main innocuous variety , whilstthe Middle Ages prescription of " drink a potion made from the gall of a emasculate boar" is just gross . Incidentally , the emasculate Sus scrofa succus was also included in a concoction to knock victim " “ er , affected role " “ about to undergo surgery in the Middle Ages as well . So many use for castrated boar gall , who knew ?
6. Carry a compass to bed with you
In the Victorian epoch , people lean to be interested in slightly doubtful spiritualist theory , including those involving magnetic fields and their impact on human wellness . Charles Dickens , who suffered from insomnia and for a time , try out a combination of opium and alcohol that entrust him with a disgustful katzenjammer , ultimately found relief after placing the drumhead of his bed due Frederick North .
