“One of the most important reasons for the increase in the number of sufferers from insomnia is the fact that so much is said about it in the newspapers and so much talked about it in drawing rooms and other familiar modes of disseminating ideas. The impression produced is that loss of sleep even to a slight degree is an extremely serious event and that it is only a question of a few repetitions of it until the physical condition will break down or the mind give way.” James J. Walsh, ‘Insomnia as a Dread’, International Clinics, iv (1916), 52.