Water beds?

[Jennyford]

An ignorant question - when did water beds come into use in hospitals, and how much were they used in WW1? I've just come across an urgent appeal in The Times from a hospital in Wimereux (December 1914) for two water beds.

Jennian

[centurion]

This has been covered quite extensively elsewhere on this forum - try a search. Waterbeds were used for the treatment of severe burns allowing patients to be suspended in a solution. The waterbed as we know it was also used to spread pressure on the body..

[centurion]

See this Water bed

[Jennyford]

Thanks - I did search, but could only find references to water treatment, ie immersion in a bath, for burns etc.

I was wondering about actual water beds - who invented them, and how widely they were used outside the UK in WWI etc.

Jennian

[centurion]

Thanks - I did search, but could only find references to water treatment, ie immersion in a bath, for burns etc.

I was wondering about actual water beds - who invented them, and how widely they were used outside the UK in WWI etc.

Jennian

Water beds first appear in the 1800s as Dr Arnott's Hydrostatic Bed and were a sheet of rubberised canvas stretched over a bath of water, later mechanisims to allow patients to be suspended in a bath so that they would effectively float were also referred to as water beds. Any WW1 referrence will refer to either one of these - they were primarily used in hospitals. The water bed as we know it with a mattress made of a rubber chamber or chambers containing water was first described in a number of stories and novels by Robert Heinlein but one was not built until 1968 by a Charles Hall who was unable to obtain a patent because of the Heinlein descriptions.

[Jennyford]

Perfect - thank you.