added some monkey patches to improve the http connection speed. (by keeping the http connection open)

lib/couchrest/monkeypatches.rb

@@ -23,6 +23,24 @@ class Time
   # end
 end
 
+# Monkey patch for faster net/http io
+if RUBY_VERSION.to_f < 1.9
+  class Net::BufferedIO #:nodoc:
+    alias :old_rbuf_fill :rbuf_fill
+    def rbuf_fill
+      begin
+        @rbuf << @io.read_nonblock(65536)
+      rescue Errno::EWOULDBLOCK
+        if IO.select([@io], nil, nil, @read_timeout)
+          @rbuf << @io.read_nonblock(65536)
+        else
+          raise Timeout::TimeoutError
+        end
+      end
+    end
+  end
+end
+
 module RestClient
   def self.copy(url, headers={})
     Request.execute(:method => :copy,
@@ -35,4 +53,47 @@ module RestClient
     :url => url,
     :headers => headers)
   end
+  
+  class Request 
+    def transmit(uri, req, payload)
+			setup_credentials(req)
+			
+			Thread.current[:host] ||= uri.host
+      Thread.current[:port] ||= uri.port
+
+			net = net_http_class.new(uri.host, uri.port)
+      
+      if Thread.current[:connection].nil? || Thread.current[:host] != uri.host
+        Thread.current[:connection].finish if (Thread.current[:connection] && Thread.current[:connection].started?)
+        net.use_ssl = uri.is_a?(URI::HTTPS)
+        net.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE
+        Thread.current[:connection] = net
+        Thread.current[:connection].start
+      end
+
+			display_log request_log
+      http = Thread.current[:connection]
+
+      http.read_timeout = @timeout if @timeout
+      begin
+  			res = http.request(req, payload)
+  		rescue
+  		  # p "Net::HTTP connection failed, reconnecting"
+  		  Thread.current[:connection].finish
+  		  http = Thread.current[:connection] = net
+        Thread.current[:connection].start
+        res = http.request(req, payload)
+        display_log response_log(res)
+  			process_result res
+		  else
+  			display_log response_log(res)
+  			process_result res
+  		end
+			
+		rescue EOFError
+			raise RestClient::ServerBrokeConnection
+		rescue Timeout::Error
+			raise RestClient::RequestTimeout
+		end
+  end
 end