Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles Part 7

[61] "More pity that the eagle should be mewid, while kites and buzzards prey at liberty" (Shakespeare). As hawks were caged while moulting or mewing (Fr. _mue_, from _mutare_), a mew or mews came to mean a place of confinement. "Stable so called from the royal stables in London, which were so named because built where the king's hawks were mewed or confined" (Webster). Wordsworth has "violets in their secret mews." An asylum might be correctly styled a "Lunatic Mews."

[62] _Op. cit._, p. 139.

[63] Act i. sc. 4.

[64] "The Workes of Sir Thomas More," vol. ii. p. 901. Edit. London, 1557.

[65] Malcolm's "Londinum Redivivum," 1803, vol. i. p. 351.

[66] Charity Commissioners' Report, 1837, from which much valuable information has been derived.

[67] See note on Bethlem, Appendix A.

[68] "A contest had long subsisted between the Common Council of the City of London and the acting governors of all the royal hospitals, the former claiming a right to be admitted governors in virtue of the several royal charters. This dispute has been happily settled by a compromise which allows the admission of twelve of the Common Council to each hospital," by the Act of 1782 (Bowen's "Historical Account of Bethlem," 1783).

[69] Charity Commissioners' Report, 1837, p. 390.

[70] See Munk's "Roll of the Royal College of Physicians," vol. i. p.

177.

[71] Edit. 1877, vol. v. p. 472.

[72] Appointed apothecary to Bethlem, 1795.

[73] "Natural History of Wilts.h.i.+re," p. 93.

[74] _London Gazette_, No. 1000.

[75] This charter appears to grant more than the mere patronage of the hospital.

[76] Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 119 (edit. 1850).

[77] The houses in Charing Cross and Barking, while earlier than Bethlem as receiving the insane exclusively, were, of course, on a very small scale compared with the Moorfield Asylum.

[78] Noorthouck's "A New History of London," 1773.

[79] In fact, it was built on the plan of the Tuileries, which is said to have greatly incensed Louis XIV.

[80] Not of bra.s.s, but of Portland stone. One of the figures was said to represent Oliver Cromwell's porter, who was a patient in the first Bedlam. In 1814 they were "restored" by Bacon (the younger).

[81] Pennant's "London," edit. 1793, p. 267.

[82] Smith, _op. cit._, p. 35.

[83] Cf. Ireland's "Hogarth," vol. i. p. 64, for description of this plate.

[84] Page 61. Written in 1703.

[85] Malcolm, in his "Londinum Redivivum," 1803 (vol. i. p. 351), says, "The back part of the hospital, next London Wall, is too near the street. I have been much shocked at the screams and extravagances of the sufferers when pa.s.sing there. This circ.u.mstance is to be deplored, but cannot now be remedied."

[86] Proceedings of the Committee and Reports from Surveyors respecting the state of Bethlem Hospital in 1800 and 1804. London, 1805.

[87] Charity Commissioners' Report, 1837.

[88] Bethlem expended 606 in 1814 and 1816, in opposing the "Mad-house Regulation Bill."

[89] See Dr. Munk's "Roll of the College of Physicians," vol. i. p. 361.

For notices of the Monros, see the same work. An interesting series of portraits of this family are in the possession of the College.

[90] "Roll of the College of Physicians," by Dr. Munk, vol. i. p. 428.

[91] Dr. Munk.

[92] _Edinburgh Review_, 1817, p. 443.

[93] Exemption from the operation of previous Acts had been obtained by 22 Geo. III., c. 77, s. 58; 9 Geo. IV., c. 40; and 2 and 3 Will. IV., c.

107, s. 62.

[94] A view of the hospital may be seen in the Print Room of the British Museum: vide ma.n.u.script "Index to Views," vol. viii. print 253. It is anything but inviting. Print 257 exhibits the building in Old Street.

[95] "The Battiad," attributed to Moses Mendez, Paul Whitehead, and Dr.

Schomberg.

[96] See Thornbury's "Old and New London," vol. ii. p. 200.

[97] "Some Account of London," 3rd edit. 1793, p. 268.

[98] Ma.n.u.script memorandum of a visit to St. Luke's in 1812, by S. Tuke.

[99] These particulars are taken from St. Luke's Annual Report of 1851, containing a retrospective sketch of its history, for the use of which we are indebted to the present superintendent, Dr. Mickley. Statistics of recovery are given for different periods, but the fallacies attending such comparisons are so great that I have not cited the figures.

CHAPTER III.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ASYLUMS--FOUNDATION OF THE YORK RETREAT.

There were in England, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, private asylums for the insane, the beneficial treatment pursued in which was loudly vaunted in the public ear; but I am afraid the success was not equal to the promise or the boast. Thus, there was in London an old manor house in Clerkenwell, previously the residence of the Northampton family, which was converted into a private asylum by Dr.

Newton the herbalist. His work, "The Herbal," was published by his son some years afterwards. There appeared in the _Post Boy_ (No. 741) in the year 1700 an advertis.e.m.e.nt from Dr. Newton, which runs as follows:--"In Clerkenwell Close, where the figures of Mad People are over the Gate, liveth one who by the blessing of G.o.d cures all Lunatick, distracted, or mad people; he seldom exceeds three months in the cure of the Maddest person that comes in his house; several have been cured in a fortnight and some in less time; he has cured several from Bedlam, and other mad-houses in and about the city, and has conveniency for people of what quality soever. No cure--No money."

A certain Dr. Fallowes published a work on insanity which attracted some attention at this period, having for its t.i.tle, "The Best Method for the Cure of Lunatics, with some Accounts of the Incomparable Oleum Cephalic.u.m used in the same, prepared and administered."[100] The author observes in his preface that "as this Kingdom perhaps most abounds with lunaticks, so the greatest variety of distractions are to be seen among us; for the spleen to which it has been observed this nation is extremely subject, often rises up to very enormous degrees, and what we call _Hypo_ often issues in Melancholy, and sometimes in Raving Madness." The proper seat of madness, he adds, appears to be the brain, "which is disturbed by black vapours which clog the finer vessels thro'

which the animal spirits ought freely to pa.s.s, and the whole ma.s.s of blood, being disordered, either overloads the small veins of the brain, or by too quick a motion, causes a hurry and confusion of the mind, from which ensues a giddiness and at length a fury. The abundance of bile, which is rarely found to have any tolerable secretion in such patients, both begets and carries on the disorder." Again, it will be seen that there is nothing more than the fas.h.i.+onable cla.s.sic humoral pathology, without any original observations, and, in fact, the book is little more than a puff of his incomparable oleum cephalic.u.m, "a n.o.ble medicine,"

which he professes to have discovered; "a composition so very curious, which I have known the use and benefit of in so many instances, that I can venture to a.s.sure it to be the best medicine in the world in all the kinds of lunacy I have met with. It is of an excellent and most pleasant smell, and by raising small pustules upon the head, which I always anoint with it, opens the parts which are condensed and made almost insensible by the black vapours fixed upon the brain; it confirms its texture, strengthens the vessels, and gives a freedom to the blood and spirit enclosing them.... When applied after the greatest fury and pa.s.sion, it never fails to allay the o.r.g.a.s.m of the animal spirits, and sweetly compose 'em.... The distemper will be soon discharged, and I have known it frequently to produce a cure in the s.p.a.ce of one month."

He tells the reader he has had 10 a quart for it, but in compa.s.sion for the poor he has prepared a quant.i.ty to be sold at 4 a quart at his house. He also boasts of his kind treatment, and says, "The rough and cruel treatment which is said to be the method of most of the pretenders to this cure, is not only to be abhorred, but, on the contrary, all the gentleness and kindness in the world is absolutely necessary, even in all the cases I have seen." He says that not only has he never used violence, but that his patients have good and wholesome food in every variety, and maintains that such entertainments as are fit for persons of any degree or quality will be found in his house in Lambeth Marsh, "where the air is neither too settled and thin, nor too gross." As chalybeate waters and cold bathing are useful, they can be had near, at the Lambeth waters and in the Southwark Park; and he closes his book by declaring that he is "always ready to serve mankind upon such terms as shall be acknowledged reasonable and proportioned to the character and condition of every patient."

Whether the patients placed under his care were treated as scientifically and kindly as at the well-known asylum now in Lambeth Road does not admit of question, although the latter has not much to say of the "black vapours fixed upon the brain," nor can it, I am afraid, boast of such a panacea as the oleum cephalic.u.m!