4 Comments Posted by Littleflippit

I think this is probably a sleep EEG for someone suffering from epilepsy-some epilepsy suffers only have fits when they sleep. I'd bet that the disturbance on this reading was an epileptic fit.

As has been said by others, Cribs are not necessarily 'bed prisons' but are often for the benefit of the user. After all, a grown adult with normal mobility could easily climb out of one if they wished and so it is more likely that adults with mobility problems who were at risk of falling out the bed were given cribs to sleep in. I work with adults with disabilities and two of the people I work with have beds which are like modern day cribs with wooden rail sides which are slid up once the person is in bed to prevent them falling out. Another lady I work with has a special symmetry sleep bed with strategically placed pillows to prevent her moving in her bed so she literally stays in the one position all night (on her back). It sounds like torture to us but it is very important for her. Not all devices from yesteryear were for torture! :-)

Another reason the toilet may have been encased is so that no ligatures (e.g. a sweatshirt) can be tied round the base of the toilet, taken up and over the toilet and then tied around the neck of the person in the cell. It is possible for a person to 'hang' themselves in this way if the ligature is taught enough as the person will lie on the ground and 'suspend' their upper body weight upon the ligature around their neck. Sounds outlandish but unfortunately I have heard of this happening in a police cell.

There are wooden revolving doors very similar to this as a side entrance to my local infirmary in Aberdeen (Scotland), which is still in use-I guess they're not so rare in hospitals after all! :-)