many are utterly regardless of it. It depends on the size of the
room, the part occupied by the fireplace, and the position of the
windows. If possible, the bedstead should always be put between the
door and windows; not at the end of a long room, where the fresh air
can never blow upon it; and not opposite to the windows, as the glare
from them is not agreeable on first awakening. It is not easy to lay
down fixed rules, but the housewife should give this a proper amount
of thought and care. It is wrong to place beds sideways against a
wall, as they invariably spoil the paper or paint, and will very
likely be badly made.
Servants are very often put in attics without fireplaces. This is an
unwholesome plan which should be avoided, as without a chimney there
cannot be proper ventilation. When an attic is the only available
servants’ room, some ventilation should be effected by boring holes
in the wall, or by making one large hole and inserting a grating.
An open grate is, however, far preferable, as it greatly conduces
to the wholesomeness of any sleeping room to have a fire lighted
in it several times in the course of the winter. Bare boards,
with good strips of carpet round the beds, a chest of drawers,
looking-glass, and neat washstand for each servant, and a couple of
cane chairs, would be quite enough for a room occupied by two maids.
Each maid should certainly have a separate bed, and a comfortable
one. Servants’ beds should never have valances round them, as it
encourages a habit of keeping boxes and rubbish under the beds, which
is most untidy and unwholesome. There should be a couple of bags
hung up for soiled linen, unless a wash-basket can be spared. The
room should be not only swept out every week in turn with the other
bedrooms, but also well scrubbed all over with carbolic soap, and
left to dry with windows and door open. If this is done, the room
will never get stuffy. Encourage everything in the way of neatness
and refinement. Cotton, twill, or unbleached linen is suitable for
sheeting. Each servant should have one clean sheet a week, changing
the upper one to the lower regularly. A clean pillowcase every week
is generally necessary, and one large or two small towels. A bell
communicating between the mistress’s room and the servants’ is a
great convenience for calling them in the morning. Insist on having
the beds stripped and the window opened as soon as the servants are
up.
_The Bed._--To revert to the bedstead, its size and length are well
worthy of consideration. Of course these may vary according to the
fancy of the occupant; but, unless in exceptional cases, a bed should
never be less than 6 ft. 6 in. in length for a grown person. A tall
man may be made utterly miserable by a bed too short for him, while
the extra inches make but little difference, even in a small room.
The width must vary as the tenant likes; but a bedstead to contain 2
persons should certainly never be less than 5 ft. 6 in., and will be
better at 6 ft. in width.
The feather bed is now acknowledged to be a mistake, and detrimental
to health and strength. It is both enervating and luxurious; it heats
and relaxes the spine, and enfeebles the whole frame. Notwithstanding
that warmth is considered of the utmost necessity for an infant,
feather beds are now never put in their cots or bassinettes, wool
and hair mattresses being used instead. In larger bedsteads in
private houses, spring and hair mattresses have almost completely
taken the place of the feather bed. Nevertheless, it should by no
means be tabooed in the case of the old and infirm, who, having lost
the quick pulsation so necessary for the warmth of the body, and
still more the pliability of their limbs, require the surrounding
softness of the feather bed to afford them the caloric they so much
need, and a greater support and more yielding substance than the
mattress to afford them rest. For them the feather bed is highly
useful and desirable; but for the vigorous and the young there is
not this excuse, and it should never be allowed. Besides which it is
expensive, and requires much care to protect it from the moth.
The advantages of chaff beds are many. Real chaff, not chopped straw,
is used for them, and they are cheap, easily filled, and easily
renewed; the latter should be done once a year. Delightfully soft,
and at the same time supporting, they have not the stuffy heat of
feathers, but are warmer than mattresses. A chaff pillow and bolster
to those suffering from headaches are luxuries. In making the bed,
chaff must be well shaken.
The horsehair mattress is now usually preferred, and is an agreeable
substitute, being cooler, more comfortable, and far better than the
feather bed from a sanitary point of view. Then there is the wool
or flock mattress, much less expensive, and very commonly found
in servants’ rooms and in the dwellings of the poorer classes. It
soon, however, wears flat, and even with care becomes lumpy after a
short time, and moth is very likely to attack it. Even when mixed
with hair, it makes an unsatisfactory bed, and loses much of the
springiness which is so pleasant a sensation in one of superior
horsehair. It must be owned, however, that not a little of the
discomfort of wool mattresses is owing to the carelessness with which
they are treated. If now and again they were unpicked, and the wool
well carded, they could easily be restored to their first state and
made clean and comfortable--for the tick which contains the wool
is capable of being washed during the picking and carding process.
French mattresses are irreproachable. It is the custom throughout
France to renew the mattress once a year; and taking advantage of the
summer months, they remove the tick covering, and pick, card, and
pull the wool or hair until they have restored it to its original
elasticity. The tick or covering is then replaced by a clean one,
and very wholesome and pleasant is the result. The wool mattress
is not at any time so pleasant as one made of horsehair, nor is it
so durable; and indeed it is well to bear in mind, that the most
economical method in the end is invariably to purchase the best
material.
The housemaid should have strict injunctions to beat, shake, and turn
all mattresses each morning, and they should be brushed all over
from to time, in order to prevent dust and flue from accumulating
underneath the little leather stars through which the thread for
ticking the mattress down is passed. To prevent the edge of the
mattress from becoming soiled, it is an admirable plan to sew or tack
a border of glazed holland all round the palliasse and mattresses;
and a still better one is to have them put into large white covers,
after the fashion of a pillow case, as these may be removed and
washed at will, keeping the external tick always as good as new.
A straw palliasse is the first thing placed upon the laths of the
bed: with a proper amount of care this should last a lifetime. The
spring mattress takes the place of it in many instances, being an
invention of modern times. It is much more expensive, but is held in
high esteem by most housewives, being considered superior in comfort
to any other kind. But some housewives still prefer the palliasse,
declaring that, with two good hair mattresses placed above it, no bed
can be superior to it in elasticity and comfort.
The spring bed has its faults; the wires underneath, not easily
reached, collect dust, and they may get out of order, in which case
they occasion no small discomfort. The best spring bed is that called
the Sommier Tucker--on a new principle, without a covering, so that
it can be entirely cleaned and dusted throughout. These beds are
undoubtedly cool and have the advantage of giving great elasticity to
the bed, as indeed do all of their kind. A hair mattress is always
placed on the springs; this, if well brushed and tended, ought to
require only occasional renewal, perhaps once in 8-10 years.
The bolster is always of feathers; the pillows may be manufactured
either of feathers or down, according to the fancy of the housewife.
This is quite a matter of taste; and some like a hard, others a very
soft pillow. The shape must also vary, according to the ideas of
those most concerned. The oblong is the usual form, but a square cut
one, after the French fashion, is a very comfortable style of pillow.
The number of blankets must vary, according to each person’s taste
and the time of year, but 2 on an average, are enough for temperate
weather. Great care should be taken in the purchasing of these: they
should be of the best quality, and the wool free from a mixture of
cotton. They should be washed at least once a year; but that ought to
be enough, as they are impoverished by constant cleansing. For winter
wear the Witney blanket is a delightful covering. Sheets may be made
either of linen or cotton, and their textures are numerous; varying
from the delicate fine linen of the wealthy and luxurious housewife,
to the thick, coarse, unbleached cotton of the poorer classes. Linen
is the most durable, and is generally used in preference to cotton,
as being more pleasant to the touch. It is cooler, preferable for
summer wear, and some people are rendered hot and uncomfortable
when sleeping in cotton sheets at any time of the year. In winter
however, much may be said in their favour. By using them, the chill
which first contact with linen invariably gives the skin is avoided.
For children’s beds they are much the best, and can be bought of as
fine a quality as the housewife desires. Twilled cotton wears the
longest, and is a very suitable material for servants’ sheets. For
keeping the feet warm there is no covering so pleasant as the eider
down quilt, its lightness being its greatest recommendation. But each
person has his or her idiosyncrasies on the matter of quilts, and the
arrangement of the bed.
_Making Beds._--Bear in mind, to begin with, that, unless a bed is
properly aired every day, it certainly will not be a place of rest.
Remember the instant you get up, to throw back all top clothes, and
let the air come freely to the lower sheet. This will be a great help
to the housemaid later on. A bed should always be stripped daily.
Every girl should, as a matter of course, learn to make her bed,
and it would be very good for her if she had to do it regularly
as part of the daily routine. Naturally, while little, she would
require help and supervision; but after 14 she ought to make her bed,
and be responsible for the general tidiness of her room, with no
further interference than the sweeping and a little help in turning
the mattresses. Rooms would be more daintily kept if girls were
encouraged to see to such things and the housemaid would be saved a
good deal of work.
The proper course in bed-making is as follows: The bolster and
pillows should, after a slight shake, be laid aside; the mattress
freed of the bedclothes, should be raised and allowed to stay in an
arch for a few minutes, to let the air get to the palliasse or spring
bed; then it should be turned head to foot, or side to side, to
equalise the wear, and well kneaded and shaken, to prevent any hard
lumps gathering. Next lay the binder blanket smoothly over it, then
the sheet, allowing the piece at the top to roll the bolster in, if
you do not use a bolster-case, tuck sheet and blanket firmly in at
foot and sides; shake and toss the bolster well, and see the feathers
are evenly distributed, roll it up in the sheet-end left for that
purpose, and tuck the ends in well under the mattress, straining the
sheet evenly and carefully to prevent folds and creases. Then lay on
the top sheet, tucking it in well first at the foot end. Draw it up
straight and even to the top; repeat this process with the blankets
and the quilt; fold blankets and sheets well in under the mattress,
letting the sides of the quilt hang evenly and loose over them all;
then turn back the top of the sheet ½ ft. over blankets and quilt
and finally turn all together back just below the bolster; shake the
pillows as you did the bolster, place them in position, and then when
you have laid the eider down quilt in its place your bed is made. The
mattress should be dusted daily, and once a week the whole bed should
be brushed and overhauled.
=Sleep.= _Bedfellows._--There is nothing that will so derange the
nervous system of a person who is eliminative in nervous force as to
lie all night in bed with another person who is absorbent in nervous
force. The absorber will go to sleep and rest all night; while the
eliminator will be tumbling and tossing, restless and nervous,
and wake up in the morning fretful, peevish, fault-finding, and
discouraged. No 2 persons, no matter who they are, should habitually
sleep together. One will thrive and the other will lose. So say the
doctors.
_Length of Sleep._--It is manifestly impossible to lay down any
universally applicable rule as to the number of hours which it is
desirable to sleep. Probably no two persons require precisely the
same amount of slumber, and it is scarcely likely that any person
needs the same length of sleep on all occasions. Sleep is the state
in which the fires are, so to say, damped down, and the machinery has
opportunity for cooling. The bow is, as it were, unstrung, and may
recover its elasticity during the recurring periods of slumber. The
great point is to secure what Bichât characterised as “general” sleep
made up of particular sleeps. The whole body should be rested--so far
as any avoidable demand on its energy is concerned--during sleep.
If sleep be thorough, then a short spell will do more good than a
much longer duration of sleep that is incomplete and imperfect,
both in its nature and in its effects. Sleep is a distinctly
natural function, and therefore, both as regards its induction and
management, ought to be performed in conformity with natural laws.
Practically, a man should sleep until he is refreshed. The mistake
many persons make is in attempting to govern what must be a matter
of instinct by volitional control. When we are weary we ought to
sleep, and when we wake we should get up. There are no more vicious
habits than adopting measures to “keep awake” or employing artifices,
or, still worse, resorting to drugs and other devices to induce
or prolong sleep. Dozing is the very demoralisation of the sleep
function, and from this pernicious habit arises much of the so-called
sleeplessness--more accurately wakefulness--from which multitudes
suffer.
The secret of good sleep is (the physiological conditions of rest
being established) to so work and weary the several parts of the
organism as to give them a proportionally equal need of rest at
the same moment. The cerebrum or mind organ, the sense organs,
the muscular system, and the viscera should be all ready to sleep
together, and, so far as may be possible, they should be equally
tired. To wake early and feel ready to rise, this fair and equal
start of the sleepers should be secured; and the wise self-manager
should not allow a drowsy feeling of the consciousness or weary
senses, or an exhausted muscular system, to beguile him into the
folly of going to sleep again when once his consciousness has been
aroused. After a very few days of self-discipline the man who
resolves not to “doze,” that is, to allow some still sleepy part of
his body to keep him in bed after his brain has once awakened, will
find himself, without knowing how, “an early riser.”
_Wakefulness._--The difficulties about sleep and sleeplessness--apart
from dreams--are almost uniformly fruits of a perverse refusal
to comply with the laws of nature. Take, for example, the case
of a man who cannot sleep at night, or rather who, having fallen
asleep, wakes. If he is what is called strong-minded, he thinks, or
perhaps reads, and falls asleep again. This being repeated lays the
foundation of a habit of waking in the night and thinking or reading
to induce sleep. Before long the thinking or reading fails to induce
sleep, and habitual sleeplessness occurs, for which remedies are
sought and mischief is done. If the wakeful man would only rouse
himself on waking, and get up and do a full day’s work, of any sort,
and not doze during the day, when next the night came round his 16 or
20 hours of wakefulness would be rewarded by a sleep of 9-10 hours in
length; and one or two of these manful struggles against a perverted
tendency to abnormal habit would rectify the error and avert the
calamity. The cure for sleeplessness must be natural, because sleep
is a state of natural rhythmical function. You cannot tamper with
the striking movement of a clock without injuring it, and you cannot
tamper with orderly recurrence of sleep without impairing the very
constitution of things on which the orderly performance of the
function depends. (_Lancet._)
Nothing lowers the vital forces more than sleeplessness, which may
generally be traced to one of four causations: (1) Mental worry; (2)
a disordered stomach; (3) excessive muscular exertion; (4) functional
or organic disease. Loss of sleep is, when rightly understood, one
of Nature’s premonitory warnings that some of her physical laws have
been violated. When we are troubled with sleeplessness, it becomes
requisite to discover the primary cause, and then to adopt suitable
means for its removal. When insomnia (sleeplessness) arises from
mental worry, it is indeed most difficult to remove. The best and
perhaps only effectual plan under such circumstances is a spare diet,
combined with plenty of outdoor exercise, thus to draw the blood from
the brain; for it is as impossible for the brain to continue active
without a due circulation of blood, as it is for an engine to move
without steam.
When suffering from mental distress, a hot soap bath before retiring
to rest is an invaluable agent for obtaining sleep, as by its means a
more equable blood pressure becomes established, promoting a decrease
of the heart’s action and relaxation of the blood vessels. Many a
sleepless night owes its origin to the body’s temperature being
unequal. In mental worry, the head is often hot and the feet cold,
the blood being driven to the brain. The whole body should be well
washed over with carbolic soap and sponged with _very_ hot water.
The blood then becomes diverted from the brain, owing to an adequate
diffusion of circulation. Tea and coffee should not be taken of an
evening when persons suffer from insomnia, as they directly induce
sleeplessness, being nervine stimulants. A sharp walk of about 20
minutes is also very serviceable before going to bed. (_Chambers
Journal._)
Sleeplessness is sometimes engendered by a disordered stomach.
Whenever this organ is overloaded, its powers are disordered, and
wakefulness or a restless night is its usual accompaniment. No food
should be taken at least within 1 hour of bedtime. It cannot be
too generally realised that the presence of undigested food in the
stomach is one of the most prevailing causes of sleeplessness. (Dr.
C. J. B. Williams.)
Persons suffering from either functional or organic disease are
peculiarly liable to sleeplessness. When inability to sleep
persistently occurs, and cannot be traced to any perverted mode of
life or nutrition, there is good reason for surmising that some
latent malady gives rise to so truly a distressing condition. Under
these circumstances, instead of making bad worse, by swallowing
deadly sleeping drugs, a scientific physician should be without delay
consulted. Functional disorders of the stomach, liver, and heart are
often the primary source of otherwise unaccountable wakefulness.
Recently, the dangerous and lamentable habit of promiscuously taking
sleeping draughts has unfortunately become very prevalent, entailing
misery and ill health to a terrible degree. Most persons addicted
to this destructive practice erroneously think that it is better
to take a sleeping draught than lie awake. A greater mistake could
hardly exist. All opiates more or less occasion mischief, and even
the state of stupefaction they induce utterly fails to bring about
that revitalisation resulting from natural sleep. The physiological
effect of hypnotics, or sleeping draughts, upon the system is
briefly as follows: They paralyse the nerve centres and disorder the
stomach, rendering it unfit for its duties; they have life destroying
properties in a low degree; the condition they produce is not sleep,
but a counterfeit state of unconsciousness; and they directly poison
the blood, consequent upon its carbonisation, resulting from their
action. Of all hypnotics, chloral is by far the most deadly, and
should never, under any circumstances, be taken except under medical
supervision.
To epitomise what has already been said regarding wakefulness; its
rational cure should be arrived at in each individual case by seeking
out the cause, and then removing the morbid action, of which it is
but a natural sequence. Lastly, sleeplessness under no circumstances
should be neglected, as it acts disastrously both on the mental and
physical forces.
Dr. Corning drops a few simple hints which may be of value. In the
first place, he insists that people should have a regular time
for going to sleep, and it should be as soon as can well be after
sunset. People who sleep at any time, according to convenience, get
less benefit from their sleep than others; getting sleep becomes
more difficult; there is a tendency to nervous excitability and
derangement; the repair of the system does not equal the waste. The
more finely organised people are, the greater the difficulty and the
danger from this cause. The first thing in order to sleep well is to
go to bed at a regular hour, and make it as early as possible. The
next thing is to exclude all worry and exciting subjects of thought
from the mind some time before retiring. The body and mind must be
let down from the high-pressure strain before going to bed, so that
nature can assert her rightful supremacy afterwards. Another point
is, never to thwart the drowsy impulse when it comes at the regular
time by special efforts to keep awake, for this drowsiness is the
advance guard of healthy, restorative sleep. Sleep is a boon which
must not be tampered with and put off, for if compelled to wait, it
is never so perfect and restful as if taken in its own natural time
and way. The right side is the best to sleep on, except in special
cases of disease, and the position should be nearly horizontal.
Finally, the evening meal should be composed of food most easily
digested and assimilated, so that the stomach will have little hard
work to do. A heavy, rich dinner taken in the evening is one of the
things that murder sleep, says Dr. Corning; yet many people will
say just the opposite, and find they sleep most readily on a full
stomach; obviously this rule varies with surrounding conditions.
Late suppers with exciting foods and stimulating drinks make really
restorative sleep next to impossible. Narcotics are to be avoided,
save as used in cases of disease by competent physicians. The proper
time, according to Dr. Corning, to treat sleeplessness is in the
day-time, and it must be treated by a wise and temperate method of
living rather than by medicines.
Dr. Rogers asserts that invalid children with little disposition to
sleep may be induced to do so by placing their cots due north and
south, with the child’s head to the north. There may be some truth in
this popular superstition that the magnetic current induces sleep;
but “due north” is not “magnetic north” by a long way.
Frank Buckland’s remedy for insomnia is “onions--simply common onions
raw, but Spanish onions stewed will do.” The oil contained in onions,
he thinks, has highly soporific powers, and in his own case they
never fail.
Great benefit is sometimes derived from the use of a hop pillow on
special occasions.