Question: Why study the history of the oldest lunatic asylum in history?
Answer: In hopes of never repeating the horrors of the past.
My every day world is spent counseling college students. Nursing students to be exact. But prior to this wonderful position I’ve held for the past nineteen years I also worked in in-patient psychiatric units for adults and adolescents and in out-patient mental health settings. I’ve seen the anguish that mental illness brings to families of an affected love one and the agony that patients suffer because they are sometimes at the mercy of medications that may help, but also bring with them some pretty awful side-effects that can include weight gain, insomnia, dizziness, lethargy, nausea, and a host of other frustrations. Patients and clients just want to feel better and have normal healthy lives, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen and suicide results as a way of seeking relief from unbearable emotional and mental pain.
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| Melancholia and Mania |
Engraving by C. Warren first appearing in Hughson's London of two figures carved by Gabriel Caius Cibber c. 1676. The figures represented, melancholy (on the left) and raving madness or mania (on the right). They adorned the entrance portal to the new Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) which opened at a site in Moorfields, north London in 1676. (From Wikipedia-in the public domain).
The history of mental illness and perspectives on mental health throughout the world are diverse, fascinating, and often horrific. Mental illness today continues to know no boundaries. It doesn’t care if you’re poverty stricken or wealthy, unemployed or working your dream job. There is no color barrier. Mental illness strikes children, teens, and adults. Young college students sometimes go away to school where they suffer depressions, psychotic breaks, and first bouts of schizophrenia. Almost everyone has been touched by some form of mental illness even if it’s only from seeing what happens in society at it’s worst. You’ve all seen the devastation.
Originally during the reign of Henry III, the hospital that became infamous as Bedlam got it's beginnings as St. Mary Bethlehem Hospital located in Bishop’s Gate in1247 and was not a lunatic asylum at all, but primarily utilized for the collection of alms.(Also referred to as the Priory of the New Order of St Mary of Bethlem in the city of London.) Later, when patients were admitted as insane, the term Bedlam, is the name that was created out of the chaos of Bethlem Hospital.
In 1676 Bethlem was rebuilt at Moorsfield.
In the time period of the regency (this is the time period that my Ravensmoore Chronicles take place) and for many years before, the wealthy and aristocratic frequented Bedlam as a place of entertainment and thought it amusing to visit those who suffered from mental illness. If you want to watch a very powerful but disturbing video on the history of Bedlam you can do so here.
Bethlem Royal Hospital is located today in Beckenham, Kent.
What's the last book your read or movie or television show you watched that included issues about mental mental health, past or present?
You will be included in a drawing for Mystery of the Heart when you leave a comment. Don't forget there are other giveaways this month as well.
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Jillian Kent explores the darker side of Regency England. Her latest novel, Mystery of the Heart released in January 2013. Her first novel, Secrets of the Heart will introduce you to asylum life, and Chameleon will take you into historic Bedlam itself. But never fear, romance is alive and well in all of Jillian's novels.
