[Historical analysis of the hospital bed].

Until now the bed has been the basic physical resource in hospitals. This type of furniture has served to study and treat patients, through out the centuries it has undergone changes in the materials they are made of dimensions, functionality, accessories, aesthetic, and design. The hospital bed history is not well known, there are thousands of documents about the evolution of hospitals, but not enough is known about hospital beds, a link between the past and the present. The medical, anthropological, technological, social, and economic dynamics and knowledge have produced a variety of beds in general and hospital beds in particular. From instinctive, rustic, poor and irregular "sites" that have differed in shape and size they had evolved into ergonomic equipment. The history of the hospital bed reflects the culture, techniques and human thinking. Current hospital beds include several types: for adults, for children, for labor, for intensive therapy, emergency purposes, census and non census beds etc.