The Oldest Asylum: Birth of Bedlam 🏥

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It’s time for us to take a look at the birth of Bedlam and the early treatment of psychiatric illnesses…

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Intro / Outro song: Silent Partner, "Greenery" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeIkbW49B6A]

SFX from https://freesfx.co.uk/Default.aspx


Linked videos and playlists:

Four Humours: https://youtu.be/v2eXNgMERzU
Great Fire of London: https://youtu.be/mD7KO9L7sIs

Images (from Wikimedia Commons, unless otherwise stated):

Screenshots from https://www.oed.com/dictionary/bedlam_n?tab=meaning_and_use#24802012

Screenshot from https://slam.nhs.uk/bethlem-royal-hospital

Plan of the First Bethlem Hospital from Daniel Hack Tukes' Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles (London, 1882), p. 60.

Screenshot from https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1050-1485/from-bethlehem-to-bedlam/

Screenshot from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-neuroscientist-who-lost-her-mind/201804/we-scientists-know-so-little-about-mental-illness

Alchemic approach to four humors in relation to the four elements and zodiacal signs. Book illustration in “Quinta Essentia” by Leonhart Thurneisser (1574). Held in a private collection.

Plate from the "Copperplate" map of London, 1550s, showing the Moorfields area (c.1553). From M.R. Holmes (ed.) Moorfields in 1559 (London Museum, 1963).

Title page to Helakiah Crooke’s Microcosmographia (1615). Digitised by Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (SCETI).

Horwoods Map of Moorfields in 1799, screenshot from http://studymore.org.uk/mapbed.htm

Most of Bethlehem Hospital by William Henry Toms for William Maitland (historian)|William Maitland's History of London, published 1739.

A Rake’s Progress, Plate 8 by William Hogarth (1735). Held by the Met Museum.

Portraits of John and Thomas Monro (18th century). From the Royal College of Physicians website.

King George III in coronation robes by Allan Ramsay (c.1765). Held by the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Engraving of King George III by Henry Meyer (1820). Held by the National Portrait Gallery.

'Margaret Nicholson attempting to assassinate his Majesty King George III' (Margaret Nicholson; King George III) published by Carington Bowles (9 November 1786). Held by the National Portrait Gallery.

The horrid assassin Is Hatfield, attempting to shoot the king in Drury Lane theatre- on the 15th of May, 1800. Published by J Garbaneli. Held by the British Museum.

Bethlem Hospital (Southwark) Steel Engraving 1828. Held in an unknown collection.

Bethlem Royal Hospital (main building); photographed by SLaMNHSFT (2011).

CQC rating screenshot from https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RV5?referer=widget3

Screenshots from https://www.google.com/search?q=is+bethlem+royal+hospital+good&sca_esv=1e68560f6949762e&tbm=nws&sxsrf=AHTn8zomEYKAau-MV4cyOXLPzOjcWGmE_g:1741626193607&ei=URvPZ4DeJNm_hbIPq9XHqAI&start=30&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwjAyueU__-LAxXZX0EAHavqESU4FBDy0wN6BAgFEAk&biw=1170&bih=786&dpr=2.5

Screen recording of https://museumofthemind.org.uk/



Quoted texts:

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/bedlam_n?tab=meaning_and_use#24802012

Catherine Arnold, Bedlam: London and Its Mad (2008)

https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1050-1485/from-bethlehem-to-bedlam/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-neuroscientist-who-lost-her-mind/201804/we-scientists-know-so-little-about-mental-illness

John Strype’s edition of Stowe’s Survey (1720)

https://history.rcp.ac.uk/blog/queen-charlotte-king-george-and-sinister-doctors-monro

Thomas Bewley Madness to Mental Illness. A History of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Online archive 17, James Hadfield.

Also consulted, were:


Other relevant entries from The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online.

#History #Bedlam #Medieval