with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.

And thus, from too little sleep and too much reading, his brain dried up and he completely lost his judgment.

...he spent whole days and nights over his books; and thus with little sleeping and much reading his brains dried up to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason.

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.

Ordinary he was insane, But he had lucid moments when he was merely Stupid.

Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.

El hombre tenía tal entendimiento que ya casi no servía para nada.

The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.

He remembered the dissolute adventures in which his senses, his nervous system and his mind had indulged; he saw himself corroded by irony and intellect, laid waste and paralyzed by insight, almost exhausted by the fevers and chills of creation, helplessly and contritely tossed to and fro between gross extremes, between saintly austerity and lust — oversophisticated and impoverished, worn out by cold, rare artificial ecstasies, lost, ravaged, racked and sick — and he sobbed with remorse and nostalgia.

Su cansado cerebro estaba hecho un

Machine-devoured, all his hours were given o’er to that insidious circuitry, and old grew he, unnoticing, in the service of his engines.

My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten.

It was a mess. How could a man think clearly when he could not distinguish between an idiotic subconscious urge and common sense?

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.