About Beds

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 2, 1905

BEDS were unknown among the ancients, who slept on the floor or on a divan covered with skins. It was in the Middle Ages that beds first became common, being made of rushes, leather, or straw. It is supposed that feather-beds were known to the Romans, since men are reviled by one of the Latin

poets for their luxury in sleeping upon “feathers.” Heliogabalus, the most effeminate of the Roman emperors, possessed an air-cushion and an air mattress as early as A. D. 210. In England the better classes began to use feather-beds for the first time during the reign of Henry VIII, and in certain districts of Holland and Germany bedsteads are still fitted as they were then, with two feather-beds; upon one the sleeper lies, the other being used for covering. The Russian peasant places his bed on the top of the oven for the sake of the warmth given out by the fire.—Selected.