Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Bedstead
BEDSTEAD, a frame for supporting a bed. Among the various materials used for bedsteads, iron is not only the most durable, but also the most beneficial, with respect to health. Oak is excellent for this purpose, being almost impervious to worms, if felled in the proper season, and allowed to become dry; but cedar, were it not for its strong odour, would be still more efficacious in preventing the inroads of bugs, or other vermin. Hence, the beams and posts of a bedstead, made of any hard wood, might be inlaid with cedar.
On this occasion, we cannot, in justice to Mr. Lambert, of Berwick-street, Soho, omit to give a concise description of his newly-invented Bedstead for the Sick and Wounded, which he terms the Royal Patent Fracture Bed, and which is ably caculated to alleviate the painful situation of the aged, the infirm, or diseased. This ingenious contrivance, therefore, affords a comfortable accommodation to persons confined by fractures, gout, palsy, &c. it is particularly adapted to lying-in women. The bed may be made, and the linen changed, without in the slightest manner disturbing the patient, which renders it highly serviceable in camps and hospitals.
We have given a plate of this useful invention, of which the following is an explanation: A, the bedstead; B, the feather-bed; C, the straining-frame; D, the fracture-frame; S,S,S,S, four rings in the fracture-frame; E, the sleeping-desk; R,R, two rings in the sleeping-desk; F,F,F,F, pullies put in motion by the machinery; G,G,G,G, receiving-hooks of the fracture-frame; 3 3 3 3, four rings in the straining-frame; H,H,H,H, receiving-hooks to ditto; I, the plate of the machinery; K, the great wheel; L, a pinion, with a wynch turning the great wheel; O, a pall or stop; M, a pinion with a fly, to prevent a too sudden descent; N, the rollers.
The subjoined directions should be attended to in making and using the bed. Lay the straining-frame C, covered with ticking, on the feather-bed B, then the under-blanket and sheet: above these, place the fracture-frame D, (on which the patient is supported); then the bolster, pillows and upper-clothes, in the usual manner. When the feather-bed is to be made, wind up the two frames, C, and D, by the wynch, till the patient is supported above the bed, which may then be made, or, if necessary, another placed in its stead, and the two frames let down upon it.
In changing the linen, the two frames C, and D, must be wound up till they reach the four hooks G,G,G,G; secure the hooks in the four rings S,S,S,S, and wrap the sheet you intend to remove, round
Bedstead for the Sick & Wounded,
Invented by Mr. Lambert.
the upper clothes, to exclude cold; let down the under-frame C; replace the blanket, and put on the clean sheet; draw away the other, and again wind up the frame to the fracture-frame, and unhook it at the four corners. Thus resting on the under frame, the patient safely descends to the comforts of a new-made bed and clean linen.
As in the early stages of consumptive, or asthmatic disorders, it is material to avoid the heat of a feather-bed, particularly if the patient be liable to night-sweats, and if he be abie to rise and have the linen changed, the fracture-frame may not be necessary: in this case, the lower frame may be wound a little above the feather-bed; at the top of the frame C, there is a sleeping-desk, E, by which the head and shoulders may be raised at pleasure, by fixing the two hooks at the end of the frame to the two rings R,R, and freeing those at the feet: after which, by the use of the wynch, it may be lowered or raised at pleasure.
The whole apparatus may be attached to any four-post bedstead by a common carpenter.
It is needless to expatiate upon the utility of such a bedstead, to families at a distance from the metropolis: and as we have no personal acquaintance with this ingenious artisan, we cannot be suspected of partiality: indeed, the first account of his invention, together with a plate, was communicated to us by means of a foreign journal, lately imported.
Lastly, it deserves to be noticed, that the prevailing custom of providing the bedsteads of children with curtains, is liable to strong and serious objections: 1. Because they prevent a free access of air for the renewal of that mass which has been rendered unfit for respiration; 2. They endanger the lives of infants by candle-light, from which fatal accidents have frequently happened; and 3. They are pernicious receptacles for the finest particles of dust, which, as we have already observed (See Bed), are inhaled by the person confined within such curtains, on the least motion of the bedstead: and thence, perhaps, many young and blooming innocents may date the first period of their consumptive attack. We do not, however, mean to insinuate, that curtains ought to be universally abandoned, as there may occur a variety of instances, in which the laws of propriety and decorum, might render them useful and necessary.