The Proper Care of Bedding in 1837

Friday, May 4, 2007

Such wonderful things can be found on the Internet. A great example is The housekeeper's book: containing advice on the conduct of household affairs, published in 1873. This book is in the digital library of the University of Wisconsin.

As you can go and read the book at the at the above link I will just give you a few highlights to get you interested. A good part of this book deals with food preparation and preservation but I will concentrate on what the book says about bedding.

If your bedding is infested with bugs you were to take your bedsteads asunder and wash every part with corrosive sublimate. Now you may wonder just what that is, I wondered too and found that corrosive sublimate is mercuric chloride which is a poisonous compound formerly used as an insecticide among other things. It seems that mercuric chloride is one of the most toxic forms of mercury and the book recommends the bedding be washed with a strong solution. Sometimes I wonder how our ancestors ever survived at all!

The book also has an interesting solution to the problems of beds getting too damp in winter weather. It points out that if a bed will not be slept in for three or more days it will be unfit to be slept in especially by delicate person. The solution was quite simple. A "cleanly servant" should be recruited to sleep in the bed until it would be needed again.