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Art
THE LANCET
A little bit of bedlam record of the procedure required to have a patient admitted and detained. However, here is a missed opportunity to compare attitudes and practices then and now. As the exhibition continues, evolving design is replaced with evolving his exhibition is a collaboration Corinthian columns, festoons, and two technology and intimations of the between the Museum of magnificent stone figures Raving and emergence of criminology as a formal London and Bethlem Royal Melancholy Madness on the gateposts, discipline. There is a sort of rogues Hospital. It forms part of a range of made its literal and metaphorical mark. gallery, mostly of inpatients who had events planned to mark the 750th Inside too, the galleries became made attempts on the life of one or anniversary of the hospital. notorious for the viewing of the other of the Royals, with the More precisely it is the 750th lunatics as public entertainment. consequence of ending up in the anniversary of the year in purpose-built criminal which Simon FitzMary, lunatic wing. Phrenology alderman of the City of gets a brief mention. Then there is the most London, donated land for a interesting, but also the priory at the edge of the most underexplored part of city, intended to be a the exhibition. Photographs daughter house of the used to monitor patients at Church of St Mary of the height of their illness, Bethlehem in what was and before and after then Palestine. These were treatment are fascinating. crusading times. That said, a regrettable The first part of the omission is the failure to exhibition charts the follow through the history and evolution of the connection between this hospital with engravings primitive imaging as an aid and architectural plans. to psychiatric diagnosis Little is known about how then and the use of or when the priory became Famous for his cartoon drawings of cats, Louis Wain had a magnetic resonance a hospital for the sick, the dementia-type illness towards the end of his life (see Lancet imaging today. Although first recorded reference to 1996; 347: 1023) and was certified insane in 1924. The Edge the brief exposure to the a hospital being in a of the Wood is typical of the colourful pictures that he imagery of Richard Dadd document dated 1329. An produced while in Bethlem and Napsbury. Since someone and Louis Wain is pleasant, official inquiry by Henry has written 1928 on the back, it may have been painted how this sites with the IV to investigate a series of while he was in Bethlem. Taken from Bethlem Hospital declared themes of the scandals at Bethlem in 1247–1997: a pictorial record. Patricia Allderidge. exhibition remains unclear. 1403 gives first mention of Chichester, UK: Phillimore and Co. 1997. Pp 116. £19.95. The finale consists of a insane men as inmates. ISBN 1-86077-054-1. 1598 marks the first return to the architectural complete list of patients theme and a rather describing them as unsubtle public relations Fortunately, this was not to last. “prisoners”. The hospital, despite exercise on behalf of the Bethlem and Indiscriminate public viewing was extensions, soon became too small and Maudsley NHS Trust. The CD-ROM curtailed in 1770. The New Bethlem, the New Bedlam was erected at Self Help Guide to Depression is badly built without foundations on the site of Moorfields in 1676 to mixed reviews. introduced and seems isolated from the the subsiding City ditch, began to fall From panegyrical poetry praising rest of the exhibition. All of which apart. ‘Bethlems Beauty, Londons Charity and leaves one departing from Bedlam in a It is also at this point that the the Cities glory’, to another somewhat disjointed fashion. exhibition begins to fragment. The contemporary voice calling it ‘this The success of the exhibition is architectural theme is abandoned, Ostentatious piece of Vanity’, there is no limited by space. There can be no somewhat thankfully since the small, doubt that the New Bethlem with its question that over the years Bethlem necessarily dimly has accumulated an exceptionally rich lit cabinets archive of written and pictorial records, displaying the which will continue to grow. A more precious exhibits fitting anniversary celebration would make it difficult have been to fund permanent space for to get excited the exhibits of an institution that is about building part of the national and international plans. What psyche and even an established figure keeps the of speech. exhibition alive thus far are Gabrielle Murphy somewhat ob8–9 Longacre, Covent Garden, vious fillers—for Raving and Melancholy Madness example, the Carved by the Danish sculptor C G Cribber. London WC2B 9LH, UK Bedlam: Custody, Care and Cure, 1247–1997 An exhibition at the Museum of London, until March 15, 1998.
© Museum of London
© Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum
T
1258
Vol 350 • October 25, 1997
A little bit of bedlam record of the procedure required to have a patient admitted and detained. However, here is a missed opportunity to compare attitudes and practices then and now. As the exhibition continues, evolving design is replaced with evolving his exhibition is a collaboration Corinthian columns, festoons, and two technology and intimations of the between the Museum of magnificent stone figures Raving and emergence of criminology as a formal London and Bethlem Royal Melancholy Madness on the gateposts, discipline. There is a sort of rogues Hospital. It forms part of a range of made its literal and metaphorical mark. gallery, mostly of inpatients who had events planned to mark the 750th Inside too, the galleries became made attempts on the life of one or anniversary of the hospital. notorious for the viewing of the other of the Royals, with the More precisely it is the 750th lunatics as public entertainment. consequence of ending up in the anniversary of the year in purpose-built criminal which Simon FitzMary, lunatic wing. Phrenology alderman of the City of gets a brief mention. Then there is the most London, donated land for a interesting, but also the priory at the edge of the most underexplored part of city, intended to be a the exhibition. Photographs daughter house of the used to monitor patients at Church of St Mary of the height of their illness, Bethlehem in what was and before and after then Palestine. These were treatment are fascinating. crusading times. That said, a regrettable The first part of the omission is the failure to exhibition charts the follow through the history and evolution of the connection between this hospital with engravings primitive imaging as an aid and architectural plans. to psychiatric diagnosis Little is known about how then and the use of or when the priory became Famous for his cartoon drawings of cats, Louis Wain had a magnetic resonance a hospital for the sick, the dementia-type illness towards the end of his life (see Lancet imaging today. Although first recorded reference to 1996; 347: 1023) and was certified insane in 1924. The Edge the brief exposure to the a hospital being in a of the Wood is typical of the colourful pictures that he imagery of Richard Dadd document dated 1329. An produced while in Bethlem and Napsbury. Since someone and Louis Wain is pleasant, official inquiry by Henry has written 1928 on the back, it may have been painted how this sites with the IV to investigate a series of while he was in Bethlem. Taken from Bethlem Hospital declared themes of the scandals at Bethlem in 1247–1997: a pictorial record. Patricia Allderidge. exhibition remains unclear. 1403 gives first mention of Chichester, UK: Phillimore and Co. 1997. Pp 116. £19.95. The finale consists of a insane men as inmates. ISBN 1-86077-054-1. 1598 marks the first return to the architectural complete list of patients theme and a rather describing them as unsubtle public relations Fortunately, this was not to last. “prisoners”. The hospital, despite exercise on behalf of the Bethlem and Indiscriminate public viewing was extensions, soon became too small and Maudsley NHS Trust. The CD-ROM curtailed in 1770. The New Bethlem, the New Bedlam was erected at Self Help Guide to Depression is badly built without foundations on the site of Moorfields in 1676 to mixed reviews. introduced and seems isolated from the the subsiding City ditch, began to fall From panegyrical poetry praising rest of the exhibition. All of which apart. ‘Bethlems Beauty, Londons Charity and leaves one departing from Bedlam in a It is also at this point that the the Cities glory’, to another somewhat disjointed fashion. exhibition begins to fragment. The contemporary voice calling it ‘this The success of the exhibition is architectural theme is abandoned, Ostentatious piece of Vanity’, there is no limited by space. There can be no somewhat thankfully since the small, doubt that the New Bethlem with its question that over the years Bethlem necessarily dimly has accumulated an exceptionally rich lit cabinets archive of written and pictorial records, displaying the which will continue to grow. A more precious exhibits fitting anniversary celebration would make it difficult have been to fund permanent space for to get excited the exhibits of an institution that is about building part of the national and international plans. What psyche and even an established figure keeps the of speech. exhibition alive thus far are Gabrielle Murphy somewhat ob8–9 Longacre, Covent Garden, vious fillers—for Raving and Melancholy Madness example, the Carved by the Danish sculptor C G Cribber. London WC2B 9LH, UK Bedlam: Custody, Care and Cure, 1247–1997 An exhibition at the Museum of London, until March 15, 1998.
© Museum of London
© Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum
T
1258
Vol 350 • October 25, 1997