17 JANUARY 1947, Page 4

The case of the Dean of a Cambridge College who

has taken his life in the past week because "he was being driven mad by insomnia" seems to me particularly distressing. Need this really happen to anyone? Prolonged insomnia, I agree, might drive anyone to any- thing, but insomnia is surely not as intractable as that. There are plenty of drugs, the barbiturics in particular, which mitigate in- somnia if they do not actually dispel it, and even if in some cas.,s their effect is slightly deleterious (though I am assured it need no*. be) it is in no way comparable with the effects of insomnia pro- longed and unrelieved. Insomnia is not a light matter—very far from it—but I can't believe that insomnia in itself need, or ought to, drive anyone to desperation. * * * *