ABSTRACT
The inhalation of impure air was not the only threat to the occupants of a double bed. For many commentators, bed-sharing introduced a subtler but no less real danger: namely, enfeeblement through the loss to one’s bedfellow of vital energy. Nonetheless, however complex the threat to health in the bedroom may be, the solution was straightforward. The dangers of both impure air and this more general enfeeblement could be addressed by introducing a simple barrier to cross-contamination: the safe distance between sleepers ensured by separate beds. If vitiation of vital force was addressed as a threat to national well-being, it was also discussed at the level of the family. One issue of longstanding concern was the common practice of putting children to sleep with elderly relatives. The dangerous traffic between bedfellows was therefore twofold: health was risked both by inhaling the breath of one’s companion and by the possibility of losing one’s own vital force to them.
