Medical Men Dispute Tesla Theory; Call Limited Sleep and Food Vital

Nikola Tesla, famous American inventor, on his 77th birthday yesterday, said: That he eats two meals a day, the first of fats “to provide fuel for the day’s work,” the evening meal of proteins “to rebuild the body tissues;” that “I don’t sleep” at all except for a “long sleep” of five or six hours once a year and an occasional doze of an hour; and that he will live to an age of 140 or more. “With proper diet and virtually no sleep, one could live to a great old age,” he said.

Dr. Arthur F. Payne, psychologist and psychoanalyst — I have a great admiration for Dr. Tesla and his wonderful work. But I don’t think he is right. The fact is that, as age comes on, even if the body continues to function, the mind gradually retrogrades. Fads in foods do not help, for eventually we all die of heart disease when the heart stops. It is true, however, that the normal person sleeps too much. If we are emotionally adjusted, we do not need more than five hours a day. For the emotionally unadjusted, sleep of eight, nine and ten hours a day is merely an escape.

Brain Almost Perpetual Motion

Dr. Richard H. Paynter, head of the department of psychology at Long Island Hospital and president of the National Association of Consulting Psychologists — psychologists believe that the sleep habit is not required by the brain, which is almost a perpetual motion machine. It is a biological adaptation to the environment, the alternation of light and darkness which primitive man found and could not control. With light now available at night that adaptation is not necessary and experiments have shown no change in efficiency of brainwork in daytime and at night.

What Dr. Tesla has probably learned to do is to relax perfectly without losing consciousness and that is the characteristic distinction in sleep — loss of consciousness. Now, that loss of consciousness may really have the effect of shortening life, and the recovery from fatigue by relaxation without loss of consciousness may actually add to the total life span. In addition, of course, one-third of life is lost by the conventional eight hours of sleep a day.

There is something, too, in reducing the amount of food. The more food is taken in, the more blood is required to help its digestion and therefore less goes to the brain.

Dr. Tasker Howard, speaking for the press reference committee of the Kings County Medical Society — It is true that as we grow older we need less and less sleep and some are able to get along on remarkably little. Individuals who say they manage on next to no sleep, however, probably sleep more than they think. As for the diet which Dr. Tesla is reported to have said that he confines himself to, there is no virtue generally recognized in a splitting up of types of food. Such a division as of fats and proteins is against the experience of mankind and probably would not aid at all in prolonging life. It leaves out carbohydrates, which are especially needed by the very young and very old.