BED AND BEDSTEAD BEDDOE8 445 guest chambers, and is everywhere common, though the simpler open bed is fast taking its place. In the time of Elizabeth the canopy covered only the head of the bed. The Eng- Great Bed of Ware. lish beds even now are the largest in the world, and the famous ancient "bed of Ware," alluded to by Shakespeare, is 12 feet square. This bedstead was probably constructed about the year 1500, and has been for three centuries or more preserved in an inn at Ware in Hert- fordshire. It is of solid oak, elaborately carved. As many as 12 persons are said to have slept in it at one time. The beds of the ancients had, in general, few peculiarities to distinguish them from our own simpler forms. Both the Greeks and Romans had their beds supported on frames much resembling our bedsteads; feather and wool mattresses were common, and their bed- clothing was, in the luxurious periods of both nations, of great magnificence, and decorated with elaborate needle -work. The ancient Briton slept on skins ; after the Roman conquest straw sacks became common as beds. The Egyptians had a couch of peculiar shape, if we Ancient Egyptian Bed. may judge from their inscriptions ; but the beds ordinarily mentioned in the Bible seem to have been of the customary simple kind. In recent years many arrangements of the bed have been invented by leading surgeons for the comfort of the wounded and sick ; some of a kind permitting the raising or depression of one portion of the body ; others so contrived J that the patient may lie at such an angle as to permit the performance of very difficult surgical operations. The most useful of all these inventions has been that of the hydro- static or water bed of Dr. Neil Arnott. This consists of a trough or tub partially filled with water, and covered with a rubber cloth of sufficient size to sink deeply into the tub when empty. This of course floats on the water, and a bed laid upon the cloth accommodates itself to every motion of the person lying upon it. Other valuable beds for surgical purposes are those in which the patient can be moved by turning handles which lower or raise por- tions of the surface. BED OF Jl STICK, a name originally given to the raised seat occupied by the earlier kings of France in their councils with the peers and barons for the decision of questions of import. As the parliaments gained increased power, the king appeared personally only in the gravest cases ; and the name lit de justice was soon applied, not to the seat, but to an occa- sion when the king was thus present. Still later, a bed of justice was called by the king when the parliament refused to pass a measure of which he approved. He then appeared and solemnly commanded its passage ; so that the title became only another name for an act of arbitrary power on the part of the sovereign. The last bed of justice was that held by Louis XVI. in 1787, at which time the whole parlia- ment, refusing to register the royal edict for assembling the states general, were arrested and confined in prisons in different parts of France. This incident forms one of the most striking episodes in the early part of the French revolution. BKN.tRIEl X, a town of Languedoc, France, in the department of H6rault, on the Orbe, 19 m. N. of Beziers; pop. in 1866, 8,985. The town has a college and manufactories of cloths and woollen goods. In 1851 B6darieux was the scene of a serious insurrection. BEDBUG. See EPIZOA. BEDDOES. I. Thomas an English physician and author, born at Shiffnal, Shropshire, April 13, 1760, died at Clifton in December, 1808. He was educated at Oxford, studied anatomy in London, became a pupil of Sheldon, and pub- lished a translation of Spallanzani's " Disserta- tions on Natural History." He removed in 1784 to Edinburgh, where he published in 1785 a translation of Bergman's " Essays on Elective Attractions," to which he added many valuable notes. He was an active member of the scien- tific societies of Edinburgh. In 1786 he visited France, formed an intimacy with Lavoisier and other chemists, and on his return to England was elected to the chemical lectureship at Ox- ford. His talents and position drew around him many men of learning, including Gilbert and Erasmus Darwin; and in 1790 he pub- lished a dissertation, in which he claimed for the speculative physician Mayow the discovery of the principal facts in pneumatic chemistry.
