Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-01-21
Concerning Beds.

DaiiHS al siACc, the tdIAltSt
times, men have displayed their inven-
ton in designing beds which should
crafty their natural love for comfort.
for elegance, and for luxury. In the
prehistoric times the dwellers in the
caves most probably followed the sug-
gestion given them by the animals
which they drove out from their rocky
dens, in this early stage of the struggle
for existence" and made their beds of
leaves. From this condition to provi-
ding skins for the coverings of their
couches, was great advance, and with
their increasing ability to dominate
their surrounding conditions, and pro-
vide the materials for gratifying their
natural as well as artificial wants, this
step was but the first in long course
of invention and improvement applied
to beds.
Among the Romans and the Greeks.
as well as the other nations of antiquity,
such an appliance as mattress was un.
known. They made their beds upon
couches of wood, which were covered
with skins, furs. woolen and other
stuffs. Their luxury in beds consisted
only in using more expensive coverings,
replacing a sleeps skin by tigers or
substituting for rough wooden blanket
one OF finer texture, or q shawl of silk
embroidered in gold and silver thread.
These improvements, or those consist
ing in replacing the wooden bench
which formed their support with one of
bronze, or even of gold or silver, was
really only display of greater wealth,
hnt enr1l1 not ha oono,Iar1I -.
days an advance towards securing the
advantages of comfortable, luxurious,
and healthy bed
In the early period of modern history,
beds were almost universally, in Eu-
rope, nothing but bundles of straw. As
late in England as the times of Queen
Elizabeth, when no carpets were used,
and the floor was strewn with rushes,
the beds were hardly anything better,
and wooden bench, or any rude frame
work which lifted the bed above the
floor, was q luxury. Erasmus, in his
letters, describes the social condition
of the people during the reign of Henry
VIII, and was disguised at the state of
the floors. The rushes, he says, were
so seldom changed, and became so
damp, that the feet were constantly
kept wet, and thence colds and con-
sumption were quite common. In the
dining-rooms, he speaks of the filth
collected on the floor among the rushes;
the bits of meat and bones thrown to
the dogs, who fought around the guests
legs for them; the beer and wine emp
tied upon the floor; the slices of bread,
used as plates for eating their meat on,
and then thrown aside, altogether Civ
ing us no very high conception of the
neatness and fine breeding of the time.
From Delarocbe's fine picture of "The
Death of Queen Elizabeth" an accurate
idea can be gained of the beds of roy
atty at this period, and consequently
those of the common people can be i'm
agined. By careful study of the
times, and from all the contemporary
evidence bearing upon this point, Della
roche was enabled to reproduce the
scene with truthful accuracy of detail.
The queen is reposing upon a bed
formed by spreading cloths upon the
floor. She is covered with richly en-
broidered spreads of velvet, bordered
with golden fringe. The moment chosen
is when she is upbraiding the Countess
of Nottingham for keeping back the
ring Essex had sent to his royal mistress
just before his execution. The queen
herself is gorgeously attired, as was her
constant custom, but the comparison
between the brilliant coverings of the
bed and its position, one which now
would be considered as in the dirt, |
affords an admirable picture OF the par
tial civilization of the times, with its !
splendor of display and its want of the I
simplest decencies of the present.
Mattresses were first made of straw !
or wool, then moss came to be used, and
feathers, and finally curled hair. The
trouble with all mattresses of these ma
terials is, that they become by use
matted and hard, and have to be re-
made. Besides, too, all of these ma
teeials have greater or less tendency l
to retain the bodily exhalations, and in
all public places, such as hotels, hospi- !
tails, and other institutions where the |
beds are used in turn by number of
different persons, the danger of conta-
gion, and the difficulty in any case of
keeping the beds hygienically clean
and pure, according to the demands of
the present medical standard, is very
great, if not impossible.