The Room.—Some of the conditions affecting bedrooms have been already discussed on p. 101. It is not necessary to say anything about the special ventilation of bedrooms, for the same principles apply to them as to other rooms; but, in passing, it will be well to mention that there should be a floor space of at least 42 ft. to each person, and at least 500 cub. ft. of air space—more if possible; 12 ft. is quite high enough for ordinary rooms; all space above this is wasted, so far as health is concerned. There should be as little in the way of carpeting, bed and window curtains, as is consistent with comfort. Light metal bedsteads are the best. The floor is best stained and polished. Avoid crowding with heavy furniture as much as possible. If the bed is out of the way of direct draught, it is a good plan in summer to let down the top sash of the window a little way. Sleep will be more refreshing and sounder than if the window had been closed all night.

Edis would have the whole floor of the room stained and varnished, or painted, and strips of carpet, matting, or rugs thrown down only where required; these can be taken up and shaken every day without trouble, and the evil of fixed carpets is thus avoided. If, however, a carpet must be laid down, let it on no account go under the bed or within 2 ft. of the walls; the spaces under the bed or wall furniture would rarely be swept, and under heavy wardrobes and chests of drawers there would be a gradual accumulation of dirt and dust, until such time as the annual general turn-out and cleansing takes place. At least, leave the floor uncarpeted underneath a bed, so that the boards can be swept daily and scoured weekly. But if the room is close carpeted, a tightly-stretched piece of holland should be pinned down under the bed to receive the flue, which is certain to accumulate; the holland cloth can be taken away and replaced as frequently as occasion requires.

For the walls, Edis suggests a dark matting dado as a base, and the remainder of the wall to be distempered of some grateful soft tint, with graceful pattern border and frieze stencilled on, and here and there panels formed in the decoration, with enclosing lines of bright and well-selected colours, wherein might be enframed looking glasses, and here and there watercolours or photographs, as forming part of the decoration of the room, but not standing out of it in any too prominent manner. All this kind of work can be treated simply, and at little cost, and the distemper work can be rubbed over with bread crumbs, or brushed down, and so easily cleaned.

The general woodwork of the doors, windows, and skirtings should be painted in some plain colour to harmonise or contrast with the wall decoration, and the whole varnished; woodwork finished in this way can be easily washed or cleaned, and the extra expense of varnishing will be saved in a few years. Now that good painted tiles can be obtained at small expense, they may be used in washing stands with good effect, or the wall above might be lined entirely with them to a height of 2-3 ft.

With regard to warming bedrooms. It surely requires but very little common sense to see that it must be thoroughly bad for people to spend their evenings in warm comfortable rooms, with the thermometer at 60° F., and then to take their departure for chilly bedrooms, along cold passages, and to undress in a temperature of 30°-35° F. Even the strongest constitution must suffer more or less by such a proceeding. The favourite argument against warm bedrooms is that it is weakening. Sleeping in badly ventilated, hot rooms, may be weakening; but sleeping in a temperature of 50°-60° F. cannot possibly be so. If it were, then healthy sleep in the summer would be impossible. It is, of course, essential that the heating apparatus—be it a stove, a fire-place, hot-water pipes, hot-air ducts, or gas-stoves—should not consume the oxygen from the room without at the same time provision being made for the admission of fresh air from without. This fresh air from without need not, however, come into the room in a cold state. It may be first warmed by passing near to the fire or heating apparatus. Providing the above precautions be taken, there is no fear of warm rooms being injurious to health. Some grates suited to bedrooms have been described on pp. 61-71, especially the “Eagle”; but all grates possess objections for a bedroom, and probably the very best warming medium would be a soda acetate stove, as spoken of on p. 82.

As to flowers in a bedroom, it seems pretty safe to assume that the mischief of a dozen or two is theoretical rather than practical, and that those who like flowers in their bedroom may indulge their fancy quite safely. But it should be borne in mind that certain plants may throw off much larger quantities of carbonic acid gas than others; and some emit unpleasant odours. In any case, where flowers are grown in bedrooms, there should be very free ventilation.

The position of the bed in the room is of much importance, although 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

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.

Snoring.—This is caused by sleeping with an open mouth. It is just possible that by a resolute and determined effort of will the habit may be overcome; breathing by day through the nostrils only and pursing up the mouth firmly will help much towards it. It is well to urge upon all parents and nurses the absolute necessity of their training all young children to sleep with mouth shut. Never allow an infant to get the contrary habit. Watch it in early life, and close its lips when it is falling off to sleep, which can easily be done with thumb and finger, holding them together for a few seconds. The habit thus acquired wards off consumption in after-life. Coughs and colds contribute to the tendency to snore by stopping the nostrils wholly or partially, thus rendering breathing through the mouth imperative. In this case, clear your nose well at night, using snuff if necessary, and keep your mouth closed.

Supplementary Literature.

Lady Barker: ‘The Bedroom and Boudoir.’ London, 1878. 2s. 6d.