Is there a record of hospitals having siesta hours?
October 11, 2023 8:50 AM Subscribe
This story mentions in passing that Forssman conducted his medical self-experiment during his hospital's "customary siesta hour". This was in Germany in 1929. I'm having trouble finding other mentions of German hospital siestas. Are there other attestations to siestas happening in hospitals back then?
I'm specifically looking for citations. Please self-filter answers that don't have citations like "it makes sense that they'd do that" or "people used to do siestas all the time". Thanks!
I'm specifically looking for citations. Please self-filter answers that don't have citations like "it makes sense that they'd do that" or "people used to do siestas all the time". Thanks!
It is easier to find German language descriptions than scholarly works on German country hospitals in 1929.
I therefore looked at various articles in German describing the experiment, and find references to Forrsmann and Ditzen using a staff Mittagspause or Pause, eg. lunchbreak or afternoon breaks to use the room and x-ray machine. Example for Mittagspause (Page 3 above photo (Link to PDF)
One English language article says "...performed the experiment on himself during the hospital’s quieter lunchtime period.", which seems to me a more accurate translation of Pause / Break than siesta which implies a nap.
I found some German language dissertations on the history of hospital care, if you read German i can post links.
posted by 15L06 at 10:31 AM on October 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I therefore looked at various articles in German describing the experiment, and find references to Forrsmann and Ditzen using a staff Mittagspause or Pause, eg. lunchbreak or afternoon breaks to use the room and x-ray machine. Example for Mittagspause (Page 3 above photo (Link to PDF)
One English language article says "...performed the experiment on himself during the hospital’s quieter lunchtime period.", which seems to me a more accurate translation of Pause / Break than siesta which implies a nap.
I found some German language dissertations on the history of hospital care, if you read German i can post links.
posted by 15L06 at 10:31 AM on October 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
You might try a broader search than just hospitals - I don't know about Germany, but I think e.g. closing the shop for mid-day rest hours was a thing in various places, to the point of being a general cultural institution. (Sorry I don't have a cite, just a general search suggestion.)
posted by trig at 10:45 AM on October 11, 2023
posted by trig at 10:45 AM on October 11, 2023
My links do not work, not sure why.
First link https://historischesarchiv.dgk.org/2023/06/20/prof-dr-med-werner-forssmann/
Second Link https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa052
For finding more general info on German nursing in the 1920s, i would start here
https://dg-pflegewissenschaft.de/sektionen/pflege-und-gesellschaft/historische-pflegeforschung/
Or here https://www.enhe.eu/
posted by 15L06 at 12:51 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
First link https://historischesarchiv.dgk.org/2023/06/20/prof-dr-med-werner-forssmann/
Second Link https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa052
For finding more general info on German nursing in the 1920s, i would start here
https://dg-pflegewissenschaft.de/sektionen/pflege-und-gesellschaft/historische-pflegeforschung/
Or here https://www.enhe.eu/
posted by 15L06 at 12:51 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks, 15L06. It does seem likely to be a mistranslation, which didn't occur to me as a possibility before. I mean, where would they all sleep?
I asked the author of the Aeon article about that. Hopefully, he answers.
posted by ignignokt at 1:40 PM on October 11, 2023
I asked the author of the Aeon article about that. Hopefully, he answers.
posted by ignignokt at 1:40 PM on October 11, 2023
Best answer: I'm not sure "mistranslation" is exactly the right characterization. I seem to recall reading in Mann's The Magic Mountain that the patients in a sanitarium (same general time period as you're talking about) had fairly extended, enforced rest periods during the daytime. It's been a long time since I read that, though.
What I do know is, until quite recently it was common for noise restrictions during "Mittagsruhe" (English translation of German wikipedia "Mittagsruhe" - you can read for yourself) to be enforced, for a period of something like 1pm-3pm. They still are in fact enforced in some districts and especially in spa towns and such. I don't know that literally everyone would have laid down to rest in such periods, but certainly small children, elderly, frail people, invalids, and such, would have. As such, it is no stretch at all to think that a small rural hospital would have had a similar "Mittagsruhe" period for their patients and "invalids", where they are generally expected to rest uninterrupted, without loud noises or being disturbed by staff unnecessarily.
So while patients/invalids were resting during such a Mittagspause, what were the staff doing? Well certainly it would have been a very extended kind of lunch period, nothing like what would usually be conjured up by the words "lunch break" in the English speaking world today. Some of them probably would have had a little lie-down or nap, others would have had more of an extended rest or relaxation period, along with taking their lunch sometime along the way. Some are maybe doing some work of some sort (as Forssmann clearly was), but generally not the type of work that would have involved the patients. Maybe research, reading - more that type of thing.
So you could see someone think: Well, lunch break is not really an accurate translation. Siesta isn't exactly right on the nose, either, but really it captures the essence of the type of break they had to work with, much better than "lunch break" does. Neighboring countries did indeed have exactly siesta though sometimes calling it by a slightly different name, and really this is just the same thing but perhaps a bit earlier in the day. I'll just translate it as siesta because that transmits the general vibe pretty well.
Here is the Wikipedia disambiguation page for Mittagspause. Note two alternatives linked here are Mittagsruhe (mid-day rest) which is very similar to what I described above, and Siesta or "Mittagschlaf" - which translates literally to "mid-day sleep".
All the above are linked to the English translation of German wikipedia articles. So you can read and judge for yourself. But all of them allow or require some degree of actual "lie down and sleep" type activity - so in that sense, closer to siesta than what we would think of as lunch break. Also, generally, all of those were more commonly adhered to 100-ish years ago than now.
Also note the amusing photo from the German wikipedia article Mittagspause, which is captioned "Mittagspause auf einer Baustelle" ("Mittagspause at a construction site"), dating to 1955. The construction workers are quite literally conked out - something that looks a lot more like a siesta than a lunch break. But, you be the judge . . .
posted by flug at 5:18 PM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
What I do know is, until quite recently it was common for noise restrictions during "Mittagsruhe" (English translation of German wikipedia "Mittagsruhe" - you can read for yourself) to be enforced, for a period of something like 1pm-3pm. They still are in fact enforced in some districts and especially in spa towns and such. I don't know that literally everyone would have laid down to rest in such periods, but certainly small children, elderly, frail people, invalids, and such, would have. As such, it is no stretch at all to think that a small rural hospital would have had a similar "Mittagsruhe" period for their patients and "invalids", where they are generally expected to rest uninterrupted, without loud noises or being disturbed by staff unnecessarily.
So while patients/invalids were resting during such a Mittagspause, what were the staff doing? Well certainly it would have been a very extended kind of lunch period, nothing like what would usually be conjured up by the words "lunch break" in the English speaking world today. Some of them probably would have had a little lie-down or nap, others would have had more of an extended rest or relaxation period, along with taking their lunch sometime along the way. Some are maybe doing some work of some sort (as Forssmann clearly was), but generally not the type of work that would have involved the patients. Maybe research, reading - more that type of thing.
So you could see someone think: Well, lunch break is not really an accurate translation. Siesta isn't exactly right on the nose, either, but really it captures the essence of the type of break they had to work with, much better than "lunch break" does. Neighboring countries did indeed have exactly siesta though sometimes calling it by a slightly different name, and really this is just the same thing but perhaps a bit earlier in the day. I'll just translate it as siesta because that transmits the general vibe pretty well.
Here is the Wikipedia disambiguation page for Mittagspause. Note two alternatives linked here are Mittagsruhe (mid-day rest) which is very similar to what I described above, and Siesta or "Mittagschlaf" - which translates literally to "mid-day sleep".
All the above are linked to the English translation of German wikipedia articles. So you can read and judge for yourself. But all of them allow or require some degree of actual "lie down and sleep" type activity - so in that sense, closer to siesta than what we would think of as lunch break. Also, generally, all of those were more commonly adhered to 100-ish years ago than now.
Also note the amusing photo from the German wikipedia article Mittagspause, which is captioned "Mittagspause auf einer Baustelle" ("Mittagspause at a construction site"), dating to 1955. The construction workers are quite literally conked out - something that looks a lot more like a siesta than a lunch break. But, you be the judge . . .
posted by flug at 5:18 PM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by beagle at 9:46 AM on October 11, 2023