on 5/7/02 2:52 PM, Carol Ely at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Subject: Re: Bed length
>> Well, I wasn't born in the 19th century, but as a child sick with asthma I
>> was required to sleep sitting up because it was better for my lungs. .....
> It seems probable
>> that this belief was common even centuries earlier.
>
> But this is for a sick person, in the 20th century. Many 20th century
> medical practices can't be read back into the 18th or 19th century, so I
> don't think this is really evidence. I believe it was Dr. Benjamin Rush who
> did advocate sleeping sitting up... I just question how many people followed
> this advice.
>
> When I worked at the Paul Revere House in the 1980s we did some research to
> try to debunk this as a myth, but I don't remember all the details. We had a
> perfectly normal sized bed, one that would have been comfortable for a
> 6+-footer, and visitors always exclaimed "look how short that bed is"! It
> amazed us. Was it: prior expectation? foreshortening? the puffy feather bed
> confused the normal proportions? The relatively sparsely furnished room? A
> puzzlement.
>
> Carol Ely
> Museum Consultant, Louisville
>
> Do you think we can keep this thread up as long as the skateboarding
> discussion?
>
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I am 70+ and I clearly remember my great-grandmother's bed from 65 or so
years ago.  She slept on a bolster - a very solid tube pillow, topped with
several feather pillows, elevating her head to a degree that I found very
funny.  She also spent a great deal of time sitting up in bed - wearing a
decorated bed jacket, and with a special embroidered cover over the top of
the exposed folded-down sheet.  The bed was also high off the ground, to
avoid exposure to drafts (which were also the reason I was not allowed to
play sitting on the floor).  The bed was quite short, and the mattress a
couple of thick feather-filled pads that were made to fit it.

Jane Bedno

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