SEC. 4. The Bed.

This should never be of feathers.  There are many reasons for this prohibition, especially to the feeble.

1.  They are too warm.  Infants should by all means be kept warm enough, as I have all along insisted.  But excess of heat excites or stimulates the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing weakness or debility.

2.  When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell of the air.  This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the effluvia of our bodies.  But let the causes be what they may, the effects ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority combine to pronounce them very injurious.

3.  Feather beds—­if used in the nursery—­will inevitably discharge more or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender lungs of the infant.

Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds.  They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best.  If the mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a blanket may be spread over it.  Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses cannot be had, “the sacking bottom” may be substituted, or “even the floor;” at least in warm weather:  “for almost anything,” he adds, “is preferable to feathers.”

Macnish, in his “Philosophy of Sleep,” objects strongly to air beds, and says that he can assert “from experience,” that they are the very worst that can possibly be employed.  My theories—­for I have had no experience on the subject—­would lead me to a similar conclusion.  A British writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and that the custom is rapidly finding favor.  I have slept on straw, both in winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who know my habits say I use less covering on my bed than almost any individual whom they have ever known.

I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation of the system.  On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself, to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of the body may rest on it as possible.  But I consider hardness as a much smaller evil than feathers.

It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients.  This fact might at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those who are accustomed to them in early infancy.