AN IMPROVED BEDSTEAD
Year: 1864

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Edward Gedge
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
24th June 1864.-A communication from abroad by Jean Louis Mar-
goton, of No. 15, Passage des Petites Ecuries, Paris, France, Physician.
I, WILLIAM EDWARD GEDGE, of the Firm of John Gedge and Son, of No. 11,
Wellington Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, Patent Agent, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED BEDSTEAD,"
(a communication to me from abroad by Jean Louis Margoton, of No. 15,
Passage des Petites Ecuries, Paris, France, Physician,) to be as follows:-
This Invention consists of a wooden frame about six feet long, and, according
to the length of the bedstead, of the thickness of a little more than an inch
on each side the uprights, the breadth of each upright being about nine
inches, excepting in the middle, where it will have but about five and a half
inches. The extremities of the frame consist of two cross pieces about nine
inches high by about an inch thick, and, say, three feet four inches in length,
according to the breadth of the bed, a reduction of an inch being made in
the breadth of the bed, which would be, say, three feet five inches, in order
that the sheets and counterpane may be folded back; these two cross pieces
forming the extremities join two lateral pieces, and thus the frame is made.
Towards the centre of the fore part of the frame and on its inner face are
fixed two lintels forming a slide or groove, and serving to support fourteen
cross pieces or laths, say, an inch in breadth and thickness, and thirty-seven
and a half inches long. These fourteen cross pieces are joined two and two

page_text: to fix by their centre the springs, which are five in number to each row.
They are fixed by screws at about eight inches apart. The springs thus fixed
present a double advantage, one half corresponds with the upper face of the
frame, and the other with its lower face, thus producing a double frame, which
may be used at pleasure. On the sides of the frame or its upper face, and
rather less than an inch from the inner side, there are small ring bolts or
screws about three and two-thirds inches apart, in which is passed a flat or
cylindrical band to form a succession of squares like a draught-board, which
has for object to retain the springs in their respective position, and to give to
their entire arrangement the inflection communicated by any superincumbent
weight. It serves also to support the clothes which are to form the bed. The
same arrangement exists on the lower face of the frame, of which the springs
as on the upper face are held by cross bands precisely similar to the preceding.
The very moderate price of this bedstead frame places it within reach of all,
and it becomes very desirable, inasmuch as it provides the means of giving a
clean bed and ease to sick persons, in cases where cleanliness of body and bed
clothes is indispensable, there being no paillasse or stuffed mattrass to be
removed, as air may circulate freely throughout it; it is constantly purified,
and further, having two faces, it may be turned at pleasure.