The history of the mattress from the beginning to the present day

A conventional mattress is a soft rectangular bedding that sits directly on top of a rigid bed frame. As a rule, the mattress is filled with soft material or springs with a whole set of different fillers, has a durable cover on top.
Modern mattresses are very functional and practical, and the technological pinnacle of this type of products are orthopedic mattresses. They provide excellent support for the spine and other organs. However, such mattresses did not become such immediately.

Mattresses in the prehistoric era
The need for bedding has been necessary practically since the advent of man himself. At first, bunches of gathered grass and leaves were used to make the bed without any framework whatsoever. Such a bed was only a prototype of mattresses, its distant ancestor.

The first product that can safely be called a mattress appeared about 77,000 years ago. Its lower layer was made up of sturdy stems of sedge and sword-grass, taking the pressure of uneven ground and rocks. Leaves of plants from the laurel family were used as the top layer. The smell of this plant was a reliable defense against crawling and flying bloodsucking insects. The middle layer was soft leaves that provided comfort as much as possible.

Mattresses have undergone changes over time, but in the ancient context, sharing was difficult. In different regions of the world, mattresses had their own characteristics.

The mattresses of the first civilizations About 5500 years ago, during the Neolithic Age, the most advanced civilizations of the time, Persia and Egypt, appeared in Mesopotamia and North Africa. Each of these states has addressed the issue of sleep comfort in its own way.

The poor Egyptians used the large and sturdy leaves and branches of palm trees. They were stacked in a pile in one corner of the house. The Egyptian elite preferred a cotton bedding stuffed with bird down, roughly the same mattresses were used during the Roman civilization. It was the first bollard, which, slightly modified, has survived to the present day.

The Persians made their distinctive contribution to the history of mattresses by developing the first water mattress – water-filled goat skins.
The ottoman has its roots in furnishing practices in the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey, where it was the centerpiece of residential seating, usually in the form of a low wooden platform designed to hold cushions. These days, entire beds can be made out of ottomans.

Renaissance mattresses
The Middle Ages in Europe were characterized by stagnation in science and technology. The mattress has changed very little in the meantime. Wealthy people in the 16th century began to prefer mattresses sewn of silk or velvet, filled with feathers or straw. In these times, mattresses began to be decorated with various decorative elements.

The Industrial Revolution is a time of rapid change

The times of the Industrial Revolution are characterized by the rapid development of technology and the emergence of new materials. The growth in manufacturing has made even the most advanced mattresses affordable to a larger segment of the population.
The first spring mattress, consisting of a frame, cover and springs located throughout the product, appeared in 1871 thanks to the German engineer Heinrich Westphal. This was possible because a method of producing relatively inexpensive and durable steel springs had been developed 14 years earlier. Just a couple of years later, James Page (UK) developed
the water mattress, a distant descendant of those used by the Persians.
Despite this, springs did not find widespread use until after 1930. And waterbed mattresses have been used for some time to treat pressure sores, and have only gained popularity in recent decades. Which doesn’t stop them from still being used for medical purposes, by the way.

The 20th century is the “golden age” in the proliferation of mattresses
At the end of the 19th century, the technology for making latex (rubber) was developed. And in 1929, a Dunlop E employee. Murphy, pouring the latex into a mixer, whipped it with a jelly-forming agent and then vulcanized the mixture. This is how the porous material was obtained, which became used for very comfortable and convenient mattresses.

The year 1900 was a milestone in the creation of orthopedic mattresses. Jason Marshall of SIMMONS has created a mattress with a block of independent springs, that is, ones that are not connected to each other. At that time, such a mattress was too expensive and therefore did not enjoy great popularity for a long time. In the West, these springs are still known as
“Marshall springs”.

In the 1930s, artificial fillings began to be widely used for mattresses. The 1940s saw the advent of the air mattress. Today, it is a separate market segment. The air mattress is easily inflated with a small compressor. After sleeping, the mattress can be vented, rolled up and placed in a closet for storage. It provides a comfortable sleep anywhere, not only at home,
but also outdoors, visiting and t. д. It also solves the problem of resting in small spaces.

Space technology has also contributed to the development of mattresses. For example, shape memory mattresses came about because NASA invented foam, which can be in two aggregate states at the same time: solid and liquid. Interestingly enough, NASA did not end up using this space development, but it turned out to be in great demand on the mattress
market. Memory foam was of no use to NASA, but has become a popular filler for orthopedic mattresses.

The Emergence of Orthopedic Mattresses Many of the developments described above (spring mattresses, latex foam products, the invention of shape memory foam) are now used to make orthopedic mattresses today. What is an orthopedic mattress? Orthopedics is a section of medicine dealing with the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of disorders of the musculoskeletal system functioning.

Orthopedic mattresses are designed to effectively relieve the spine, support different parts of the body and ensure normal blood circulation, for which they have special properties and well-chosen materials.

The first orthopedic mattress saw the light of day thanks to the research of Tempur World specialists in 1991. It was a mattress based on shape memory foam. Its effectiveness for preventing and treating joint and back pain, as well as relaxing and treating insomnia was immediately apparent. Orthopedic mattress produces therapeutic effect – helps in spinal recovery, improves blood circulation.

And now, increasingly, people are choosing orthopedic mattresses to prevent spinal disorders, relieve stress while sleeping and for maximum comfort. Favor, on the market, the choice of orthopedic mattresses is huge, both spring-based and spring-free. They are created using a variety of materials: natural wool, horsehair, coconut coir, seaweed, natural
and artificial latex, cotton, felt and others. These days, the replacement cycle is a key revenue driver for the mattress industry – for example, a five-year replacement cycle generates twice as many sales as a 10-year
replacement cycle – so the mattress industry has a financial incentive to shorten the replacement cycle. Notably, the International Sleep Products Association (ISPA) established the Better Sleep Council (BSC) in 1979 with the stated goal of “reducing the mattress replacement cycle” and encouraging people to “invest in better quality bedding”.