The Utica crib: Biography of an unknown barbarous object.

During the latter half of the 19th century, a device known popularly as the "Utica crib" became widely used in asylums and state hospitals across North America. The design varied to an extent between institutions but generally consisted of an enclosed, rectangular box made from combinations of wood slats or metal screening, with a hinged lid that could be latched closed on one side. The box was large enough to allow a person to lie straight inside with the lid closed. It has generally been described as no more than a restraint device used to confine patients in a recumbent position. In this article, I resituate the Utica crib in its broader historical context, focusing on the key role it played in the boundary debates faced by North American alienists. Particular attention is paid to the challenge from British alienists with regard to the nonrestraint movement and the attack from neurologists concerning the purported expertise of alienists.

[Historical analysis of the hospital bed]. / Historia de la cama de hospital. Investigación en diversos lugares y tiempos.

Until now the bed has been the basic physical resource in hospitals. This type of furniture has served to study and treat patients, through out the centuries it has undergone changes in the materials they are made of dimensions, functionality, accessories, aesthetic, and design. The hospital bed history is not well known, there are thousands of documents about the evolution of hospitals, but not enough is known about hospital beds, a link between the past and the present. The medical, anthropological, technological, social, and economic dynamics and knowledge have produced a variety of beds in general and hospital beds in particular. From instinctive, rustic, poor and irregular "sites" that have differed in shape and size they had evolved into ergonomic equipment. The history of the hospital bed reflects the culture, techniques and human thinking. Current hospital beds include several types: for adults, for children, for labor, for intensive therapy, emergency purposes, census and non census beds etc.

Together and apart: twin beds, domestic hygiene and modern marriage, 1890-1945.

This article examines the advent of twin beds as a common sleeping arrangement for English couples. Through an analysis of a range of sources from the late nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries - marketing materials, advertisements, domestic, decorative and marital advice books and novels and films - it argues that while twin beds were initially recommended by proponents of the domestic sanitation movement as part of a raft of hygiene measures, by the 1920s they had become a fashionable item of bedroom furniture for modern couples in "companionate" marriages. It was in this context that Marie Stopes, in her popular marital advice books, railed against them as an "invention of the devil", symptomatic of the evils of modernity, and endangering the happiness of the modern married couple. The article concludes that, despite these changing contexts of consumption, the significance of the history of twin beds needs to be understood through the intersecting discourses of domesticity, health and sexuality.

Space to care and treat safely in acute hospitals: recommendations from 1866 to 2008.

This paper will explore and discuss the spatial recommendations, and the supporting research evidence, for in-patient bed spaces. The bed space is defined as the area around an individual bed that offers privacy either as a single room or a cubicle. A document review from 1866 to 2008 found that the recommendations for bed space width had increased by 1.1m over 44 years, from 2.4m (1961) to 3.6m (2005). However, a small scoping project in the United Kingdom revealed that the bed space areas in recently built hospitals (medical and surgical wards) were less than the recommendations. These data are discussed in the context of healthcare Evidence-Based Design to consider three patient safety issues (falls, noise and infection transmission). A role for ergonomics is proposed in the design, planning and evaluation stages as a methodology bridge between clinicians and architects (participatory ergonomics) and as an expert adviser to address design issues of patient safety and environmental functionality.

Historical analysis of siderail use in American hospitals.

PURPOSE: To explore the social, economic, and legal influences on siderail use in 20th century American hospitals and how use of siderails became embedded in nursing practice. DESIGN: Social historical research. METHODS: Numerous primary and secondary sources were collected and interpreted to illustrate the pattern of siderail use, the value attached to siderails, and attitudes about using siderails. FINDINGS: The persistent use of siderails in American hospitals indicates a gradual consensus between law and medicine rather than an empirically driven nursing intervention. Use of siderails became embedded in nursing practice as nurses assumed increasing responsibility for their actions as institutional employees. CONCLUSIONS: New federal guidelines, based on reports of adverse consequences associated with siderails, are limiting siderail use in hospitals and nursing homes across the United States. Lowering siderails and using alternatives will depend on new norms among health care providers, hospital administrators, bed manufacturers, insurers, attorneys, regulators, and patients and their families.

[Brief history of the hospital bed]. / Petite histoire du lit d'hôpital.

Start as simple litter for several patients in the Middle-Age, the hospital's bed had progressively change to the first mechanical beds in the XIX century.

The operating table: a historical perspective.

Operating tables evolved rapidly from 1860 through 1920. By 1920, the operating tables were well-designed for a wide variety of operations. Today, our operating tables resemble those developed in the early 20th century.

A historical perspective on specialty beds and other apparatus for treatment of invalids.

The bed environment and support surface have long been recognized as important in the care of the chronically ill. A review of specialty beds from the 19th and early 20th century was done from the collection of medical trade catalogs at the New York Academy of Medicine. It has been said "Past Is Prologue." Whether or not this is true, examination of selected examples of these historical beds can provide an unique and interesting perspective on contemporary practice.