A mattress is a manufactured product to
sleep or lie on, consisting of resilient materials and covered with an
outer fabric or ticking. In the developed world it is typically part of a
bed set and is placed upon a foundation. The derivation of the English
word mattress is from the Arabic word "matrah" meaning "to throw down"
or "place where something is thrown" or "mat, cushion." During the
Crusades, Europeans adopted the Arabic method of sleeping on cushions
thrown on the floor, and the word materas eventually descended into
Middle English through the Romance languages.Though a mattresses
may be placed directly on the floor, it is usually placed on top of a
bed base to be farther from the ground. The bed base may be solid, as in
the case of a platform bed, or elastic, e.g. with an upholstered wood
and wire box spring or a slatted foundation.
Flexible
bed bases can prolong the life of the mattress. Popular in Europe, a
divan incorporates both mattress and foundation in a single upholstered,
footed unit. Divans have at least one innerspring layer as well as
cushioning materials. They may be sold with a secondary mattress and/or a
removable "topper." Early mattresses
contained a variety of natural materials including straw, feathers or
horse hair. In the first half of the 20th century, a typical mattress
sold in North America had an innerspring core and cotton batting or
fiberfill. Modern mattresses usually contain either an inner spring core
or materials such as latex, viscoelastic or other flexible polyurethane
foams.
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