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  4. Bedlam

EBOOK

Bedlam

London's Hospital for the Mad

Paul Chambers
3.5
(4)
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Pages
320
Year
2019
Language
English
Publisher
The History Press

About

Bethlem Hospital is the oldest mental institution in the world, but to many it is famous only as 'Bedlam', a chaotic madhouse that brutalised its patients. This book explores the 800-year history of Bethlem and reveals fascinating details of its ambivalent relationship with London and Londoners, the life and times of the hospital's more famous patients, and the rise of a powerful reform movement which forced the government to take the issue of Bedlam seriously. Paul Chambers brings the whole story of Bethlem Hospital to a new audience, charting its well-intended beginnings to its final disgrace and reform.

Related Subjects

  • History (Medical)
  • Medical
  • Adult Nonfiction
  • Victorian Era (1837-1901)
  • Great Britain
  • Europe
  • History (Adult Nonfiction)

Reviews

"Paul Chambers has illuminated some very murky places. His portraits of those in power in the world of Bedlam, and some of their pitiful charges, give a welcome human scale to this fascinating and wide-ranging survey, from monasteries to madhouses, lunatic asylums to the NHS. I am profoundly glad that my sanity was not questioned between 1728 and 1855."
Liza Picard

Artists

Paul ChambersAuthor

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