Bedlam

In Our Time: History

BBC

History

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2016

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the early years of Bedlam, the name commonly used for the London hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, described in 1450 by the Lord Mayor of London as a place where may "be found many men that be fallen out of their wit. And full honestly they be kept in that place; and some be restored onto their wit and health again. And some be abiding therein for ever." As Bethlem, or Bedlam, it became a tourist attraction in the 17th Century at its new site in Moorfields and, for its relatively small size, made a significant impression on public attitudes to mental illness. The illustration, above, is from the eighth and final part of Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' (1732-3), where Bedlam is the last stage in the decline and fall of a young spendthrift,Tom Rakewell. With Hilary Marland Professor of History at the University of Warwick Justin Champion Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London and President of the Historical Association And Jonathan Andrews Reader in the History of Psychiatry at Newcastle University Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time for more details about In Our Time
0:04.0	and for our terms of use please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio for.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:10.8	Hello, the priori of St Mary of Bethlehem was founded in London in 1247.
0:15.8	At first it cared for the needy in general but within 200 years it was known as the place
0:20.6	to send people with mental illnesses or lunatics as they were called, supposedly disturbed
0:26.2	by the moon.
0:27.2	Bethlehem became Bethlehem which slung into Bedlam.
0:31.0	Before modern reforms that name was synonymous with chaos.
0:34.3	Tourists could and did pay to see patients raving some in change.
0:38.7	Peeps went, so did Dickens.
0:40.8	On others who were trying more enlightened psychiatric therapies, Bedlam kept the medieval
0:45.0	ideas persisting with purges and vomiting to remove excesses of black bile.
0:50.2	Conditions became notorious.
0:51.6	Corruption led to a parliamentary inquiry in 1815 which revealed that one patient had
0:56.2	been held in a form of cage for almost a decade.
0:59.6	As staff said his risks were too slim for manacles.
1:03.0	With me to discuss the early history of Bedlam are Hilary Marlin, professor of history
1:07.0	at the University of Warwick.
1:09.1	Just in champion, professor of the history of early modern ideas at Royal Holloway University
1:13.3	of London and president of the Historical Association and Jonathan Andrews, reader in the history
1:18.1	of psychiatry at Newcastle University.
	...

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