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Catharine Arnold's London #2
Bedlam: London and Its Mad
'Bedlam!' The very name conjures up graphic images of naked patients chained among filthy straw, or parading untended wards deluded that they are Napoleon or Jesus Christ. We owe this image of madness to William Hogarth, who, in plate eight of his 1735 Rake's Progress series, depicts the anti-hero in Bedlam, the latest addition to a freak show providing entertainment for Londoners between trips to the Tower Zoo, puppet shows and public executions. That this is still the most powerful image of Bedlam, over two centuries later, says much about our attitude to mental illness, although the Bedlam of the popular imagination is long gone. The hospital was relocated to the suburbs of Kent in 1930, and Sydney Smirke's impressive Victorian building in Southwark took on a new role as the Imperial War Museum. Following the historical narrative structure of her acclaimed Necropolis, BEDLAM examines the capital's treatment of the insane over the centuries, from the founding of Bethlehem Hospital in 1247 through the heyday of the great Victorian asylums to the more enlightened attitudes that prevail today.
277 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2008
About the author
Catharine Arnold
12 books199 followersCatharine Arnold read English at Cambridge and holds a further degree in psychology. A journalist, academic and popular historian, Catharine's previous books include the novel "Lost Time", winner of a Betty Trask award. Her London trilogy for Simon & Schuster comprises of "Necropolis: London and Its Dead", "Bedlam: London and Its Mad" and "City of Sin: London and Its Vices".
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March 22, 2018If you were a teacher and you set a class of teenagers a history project and one of them presented you with this book as their finished work you would be pleased with the energy and diligence, and be inclined to ascribe it's many, weird, shortcomings to the workings of the teenaged brain. However from an adult author writing not in long hand or on a typewriter but I guess with word processing software the messiness is hard to comprehend, the abrupt jumps, the incoherence and irrelevant material, perhaps her neurology is non-typical and her attention scan flickeringly short.
To continue the teacher analogy I remember being warned to always read the question first before attempting to answer it - that the weak candidate in contrasts seizes on one word from the question and just dumps down on paper everything that know related to that word. Arnold's book follows in that pattern. I imagine (i) she had received an advance from the publisher and with a week to go to the deadline realised she would actually have to write something and so sat up without sleep, half dead on a diet of coffee typing until the book was written (ii) that some wicked person advised her the way to write a book was to do some research, take notes and then just it and type continuously and not to worry too much what order the notes were in (iii) the author has achieved a perfect marriage of subject and style - the disorder and frenzy of the text representing the mind of a mad person chained up in Bedlam.
You might well at this point notice that I read the book to the end and may well be pushing your glasses along your nose ready to diagnose masochism, but I protest, that while disorganised, this isn't actually a bad book, it is simply if you ask "what is it about" I can only shrug and offer that it didn't mention kitchen sinks but that everything else was included. Perhaps you question further: "What about Bedlam: London & it's mad?" Well yes...and the rest, Bedlam was the Bethlehem hospital founded in the Middle ages as a general hospital which within a couple of centuries specialised in cases of insanity, it was moved from Bishopsgate to Moorfields to Lambeth - the building is now appropriately maybe The Imperial War Museum to several other sites including the Tavistock clinic and the Maudsley hospital (all of this so much nonsense to non-Londoners, I apologise), but the book is only partly about that institution and the mad of London, it is also a potted history of madness in Britain , some famous English people what was mad, synopses of books written about madness or by mad people in England, the Gordon Riots, Female Genital mutilation as a cure for poor eyesight (and insanity), WWI and shell shock, Freud and R.D. Laing, Care in the Community - launched as she points out under the government of the Iron Lady, with predictable results since she claimed that 'there was no such thing as society' , concepts of insanity, private clinics and on it goes, abruptly changing direction. The arrangement, such as it is, is chronologicalish, ish because at one stage we get to Jonathan Swift visiting Bedlam, then we go back a century and move forward again, as if this wasn't a book but a game of Snakes and Ladders.
Anyhow around the time of WWI (ie about 85% of the way through the book) I formed the theory that given all this disparate material that what the book "was really about" was Catharine Arnold, the author. And indeed on the penultimate page:"Some of us prefer to endure 'melancholy' in its various manifestations & accept that this variety of madness is part of our identity. As a stoic of the old school, I am suspicious of the 21st century notion of perpetual happiness, or the concept that I should be in a constant state of beatific calm. Over the years, I have learned to embrace melancholy, & welcome this dark side as my teacher, just as John Keats did when he celebrated 'the wakeful anguish of the soul'" (p.276). While I don't self-identify as a stoic, I have some sympathy with that, but that still doesn't excuse the book for being a God awful mess.
Perhaps frighteningly it seems that pretty much all the ideas about and potential treatments for madness have always been with us - truly nothing new under the Sun , drug treatments, violence, talking therapies, seclusion, ideas of environmental situation and physical causes, co-morbidities, eugenics, class, race, gender, diet, stresses, and masturbation as a cause of madness - a curiously reoccurring idea. And indeed that the boundary between the sane and the insane is fluid, a tide that over time washes up and down the shingle bank of history, your best prayer is if you happen to be considered mad, is to be considered mad at a time when the treatments tend to the humane end of the spectrum and not when Saint Sir Thomas More thinks you are a lazy malinger who can be flogged and beaten back to a cheerful state of mind.
But it put me in mind of the story O alienista (which I read some years ago in English translation - read if you can find it) and inevitably Don Quixote so by no means a reading entirely without value.
There's a story that I quarter remember about a musician being told to play, or be aware of, the spaces between the notes. And a couple of days after finishing the book the sense condenses in me that it is the same here, this is the author's personal history, it is not so much that there are unanswered questions, as that historical, social that there are questions hasn't been asked. Sancho Panza said there are two families in the world, the rich and the poor. For Arnold society decrees there are only the mad and the not mad, and God have mercy on you it you are judged to be in the first category particularly because it won't be adequately defined.
To continue the teacher analogy I remember being warned to always read the question first before attempting to answer it - that the weak candidate in contrasts seizes on one word from the question and just dumps down on paper everything that know related to that word. Arnold's book follows in that pattern. I imagine (i) she had received an advance from the publisher and with a week to go to the deadline realised she would actually have to write something and so sat up without sleep, half dead on a diet of coffee typing until the book was written (ii) that some wicked person advised her the way to write a book was to do some research, take notes and then just it and type continuously and not to worry too much what order the notes were in (iii) the author has achieved a perfect marriage of subject and style - the disorder and frenzy of the text representing the mind of a mad person chained up in Bedlam.
You might well at this point notice that I read the book to the end and may well be pushing your glasses along your nose ready to diagnose masochism, but I protest, that while disorganised, this isn't actually a bad book, it is simply if you ask "what is it about" I can only shrug and offer that it didn't mention kitchen sinks but that everything else was included. Perhaps you question further: "What about Bedlam: London & it's mad?" Well yes...and the rest, Bedlam was the Bethlehem hospital founded in the Middle ages as a general hospital which within a couple of centuries specialised in cases of insanity, it was moved from Bishopsgate to Moorfields to Lambeth - the building is now appropriately maybe The Imperial War Museum to several other sites including the Tavistock clinic and the Maudsley hospital (all of this so much nonsense to non-Londoners, I apologise), but the book is only partly about that institution and the mad of London, it is also a potted history of madness in Britain , some famous English people what was mad, synopses of books written about madness or by mad people in England, the Gordon Riots, Female Genital mutilation as a cure for poor eyesight (and insanity), WWI and shell shock, Freud and R.D. Laing, Care in the Community - launched as she points out under the government of the Iron Lady, with predictable results since she claimed that 'there was no such thing as society' , concepts of insanity, private clinics and on it goes, abruptly changing direction. The arrangement, such as it is, is chronologicalish, ish because at one stage we get to Jonathan Swift visiting Bedlam, then we go back a century and move forward again, as if this wasn't a book but a game of Snakes and Ladders.
Anyhow around the time of WWI (ie about 85% of the way through the book) I formed the theory that given all this disparate material that what the book "was really about" was Catharine Arnold, the author. And indeed on the penultimate page:"Some of us prefer to endure 'melancholy' in its various manifestations & accept that this variety of madness is part of our identity. As a stoic of the old school, I am suspicious of the 21st century notion of perpetual happiness, or the concept that I should be in a constant state of beatific calm. Over the years, I have learned to embrace melancholy, & welcome this dark side as my teacher, just as John Keats did when he celebrated 'the wakeful anguish of the soul'" (p.276). While I don't self-identify as a stoic, I have some sympathy with that, but that still doesn't excuse the book for being a God awful mess.
Perhaps frighteningly it seems that pretty much all the ideas about and potential treatments for madness have always been with us - truly nothing new under the Sun , drug treatments, violence, talking therapies, seclusion, ideas of environmental situation and physical causes, co-morbidities, eugenics, class, race, gender, diet, stresses, and masturbation as a cause of madness - a curiously reoccurring idea. And indeed that the boundary between the sane and the insane is fluid, a tide that over time washes up and down the shingle bank of history, your best prayer is if you happen to be considered mad, is to be considered mad at a time when the treatments tend to the humane end of the spectrum and not when Saint Sir Thomas More thinks you are a lazy malinger who can be flogged and beaten back to a cheerful state of mind.
But it put me in mind of the story O alienista (which I read some years ago in English translation - read if you can find it) and inevitably Don Quixote so by no means a reading entirely without value.
There's a story that I quarter remember about a musician being told to play, or be aware of, the spaces between the notes. And a couple of days after finishing the book the sense condenses in me that it is the same here, this is the author's personal history, it is not so much that there are unanswered questions, as that historical, social that there are questions hasn't been asked. Sancho Panza said there are two families in the world, the rich and the poor. For Arnold society decrees there are only the mad and the not mad, and God have mercy on you it you are judged to be in the first category particularly because it won't be adequately defined.
June 16, 2017
This is such an interesting non-fiction on the topic of London's treatment of the mentally unwell. Spanning centuries, this provided a comprehensive discourse on the subject, however, I found the focus a little too anecdotal and would have preferred, perhaps, more of a distant overview.
January 26, 2013
Bedlam suffers from poor organization, a rambling narrative, and frequent digressions; I can only assume it wasn't edited or was poorly edited. Instead of feeling like a cohesive work about "Bedlam" (Bethlem Hospital)--or "London and Its Mad," as in the subtitle--it reads like an early draft of a Masters (or maybe Ph.D.) thesis. Bedlam reads as though Catharine Arnold never decided what it is supposed to be ABOUT: is it just about Bethlem Hospital, which is how the bulk of the book reads? Is it about the treatment of mental illness in London? Is it about the history of mental illness treatment writ large? The chapter-headings are a poor guide to what is actually covered in each chapter, and even when discussing a particular period of the hospital, Arnold will discuss cases and events from across a century, without organizing them or establishing any kind of flow. There is a lengthy discussion of another hospital for the mentally ill; I have no idea why. Near the end of the book, Arnold launches into a defense of Freud (not simply his methods, but Freud personally); I don't know why this was necessary. Ultimately, while I did learn from Bedlam, its lack of cohesion and the rambling narrative were disappointing. I don't recommend it: I'm sure there are better books out there.
September 7, 2012
Slightly better than Necropolis, but written in the same accessible manner, Bedlam is a history of the treatment of madness -- not confining the discussion solely to Bethlem Hospital, but using it as a focus, and examining the pressure that shaped it. I have to say, I wouldn't want to visit the museum that's now in the old building: it sounds like it'd probably give me an anxiety attack just looking at it. Still, this account of the institution is clear and sensitive, examining doctors and patients with sensitivity and care.
I think I'd be happy to read just about any history book by Catharine Arnold: she has the right touch. Biased, yes, towards what one of my lecturers referred to as "popular history", but informative and well written for all that.
I think I'd be happy to read just about any history book by Catharine Arnold: she has the right touch. Biased, yes, towards what one of my lecturers referred to as "popular history", but informative and well written for all that.
December 6, 2012
Though filled with interesting anecdotal and historical stories (which I usually love), I struggled to finish this book. I enjoyed the anecdotes, but found the narrative hard to follow at points and not enticing to read. Many times it seemed as if there were so many random stories, the importance of each story got lost. Lots of stray threads. It's an interesting topic, but I think it would have been better served developed in a more thorough and less random way. Worth a perusal if you're into British or psychiatric history.
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May 22, 2022I tried reading this one but after the first 70 pages, I decided to give up on it. Although the subject matter seemed interesting, to me it was very disjointed and rambling and didn’t hold my interest
June 24, 2019
"Some interesting information, but very poorly structured in places. The "timeline" is based around events or individuals that impacted the institutions (rather than a linear chronology), and all that jumping around makes for some muddled reading."
March 26, 2016
I could enjoy this book when it was compiling contemporary reports on Bedlam layout and architecture or when it was discussing the specific comings/goings and cheatings of its porters and governors but whenever it dealt with something I knew about, it was wrong.
There is a paragraph about Christopher Smart. That paragraph contains one thing about him that is completely false (that he ever went to Bedlam), one that was sloppily interpreted (that he was 'addicted to hartshorn' - it was the best relief for his asthma) and one thing that could be found on any internet quotation page (Samuel Johnson's verdict about being 'as leif' to pray with Kit Smart as anyone).
Similarly, the discussion on Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' rarely goes in any more depth then the woodcut on the first page; and this book keeps saying that the English Malady was madness - it's never been madness, it's melancholy. True, melancholy is a kind of madness, but not the only one, choleric madness was supposedly the realm of the Italians and Spanish.
Then there were the digressions seemingly put in to pad the book out. What need was there for three pages about witch trials in a book about the London mad? There never were any London witch trials and there were no witches locked up in Bedlam.
I have disagreed with historic works because of differences of interpretation, but never one that has made me put it down so many times because the facts were simply not researched enough.
There is a paragraph about Christopher Smart. That paragraph contains one thing about him that is completely false (that he ever went to Bedlam), one that was sloppily interpreted (that he was 'addicted to hartshorn' - it was the best relief for his asthma) and one thing that could be found on any internet quotation page (Samuel Johnson's verdict about being 'as leif' to pray with Kit Smart as anyone).
Similarly, the discussion on Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' rarely goes in any more depth then the woodcut on the first page; and this book keeps saying that the English Malady was madness - it's never been madness, it's melancholy. True, melancholy is a kind of madness, but not the only one, choleric madness was supposedly the realm of the Italians and Spanish.
Then there were the digressions seemingly put in to pad the book out. What need was there for three pages about witch trials in a book about the London mad? There never were any London witch trials and there were no witches locked up in Bedlam.
I have disagreed with historic works because of differences of interpretation, but never one that has made me put it down so many times because the facts were simply not researched enough.
June 5, 2011
Completely loved Bedlam, London and Madness. Am about to read the third in Arnold's series on London - City of Sin. This book was so easy to read (done and dusted in 48 hours) but at the same time carefully researched, full of fascinating stories, and in in parts, earnestly and poignantly wrought. I already knew a lot about the subject, but Arnold brings something personal and evocative to her history. She really connects with her subject and her reader, so much so, that I couldn't put it down. A very satisfying read.
February 27, 2014
really disappointed.
Focused more on names and dates than the details of the events.
Can I speak to the manager please?
Focused more on names and dates than the details of the events.
Can I speak to the manager please?
July 23, 2011
I liked this book but did feel it had it's problems. Whilst Arnold did acknowledge at the start that the book would not be an exhaustive exploration of Bedlam and pointed to other great books on the subject, I felt she lost her way as the book progressed. It started as a history of Bethlem, using case studies of certain patients to demonstrate the changing face of the hospital, it's practices, as well as it's location and staff. It seemed however, that with each chapter Arnold moved further away from the focus on Bedlam and more towards a general potted history of madness. Some later chapters made only a passing reference to the hospital in an attempt to link it in to subjects such as George III and the treatment of 'mad women' in both literature and history. Whilst this information was interesting, it wasn't why I was reading the book. I expected the story of Bedlam to have a focus on the patients and staff, not on subjects such as Mrs Havisham which were irrelevant to Bedlam. Aspects of Arnold's written bothered me, such as describing the character of Bertha Mason as a pyromaniac. Yes she started fires, but I don't think it was for the love of fire but more as an act of revenge and destruction, making Arnold's statement questionable. The last two chapters were interesting as I've said, but it was information I already knew from people such as Elaine Showalter. There is a description of a shell shock patient's treatment which I have read before and although I cannot remember the source I first read it in (it may have been Showalter) it seemed lifted almost word for word and I had a sense of deja vu at what I was reading. This made me doubt Arnold's work as it didn't seem to generate anything original but regurgitated other works on madness to fill pad out her brief account of Bethlem. This is a very cynical view and maybe I'm wrong but when it came to the last two chapters I already knew all of the information pretty well. The story of Bethlem that Arnold did tell was a fascinating one but it has just left me wanting to find other books on the subject in the hope of getting a fuller picture.
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July 6, 2012One of those faintly annoying non-fiction books which, while it contains many interesting facts along the way, doesn't quite feel like it coheres. I suspect its focus needs to be either narrower (Bedlam itself) or wider (a history of madness in London); as is, it's somewhere between the two.
Also - the author keeps dropping pop references in ('Gypsies, tramps and thieves'; 'ringleader of the tormentors') in exactly the way I would, so I liked that, but in her jacket photo she has her Joy Division badge on at right angles! Did she not get to approve the pic or something?
(And don't even think about suggesting I wouldn't say the same thing about a male author depicted with a similarly wonky badge)
Also - the author keeps dropping pop references in ('Gypsies, tramps and thieves'; 'ringleader of the tormentors') in exactly the way I would, so I liked that, but in her jacket photo she has her Joy Division badge on at right angles! Did she not get to approve the pic or something?
(And don't even think about suggesting I wouldn't say the same thing about a male author depicted with a similarly wonky badge)
October 23, 2014
Catharine has managed to make an interesting subject incredibly boring. Disjointed and tedious, I couldn't wait to put it down.
October 30, 2018
Poorly researched and even worse written history
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October 2, 2021This is a short book on the history of Bethlem Hospital, one of the world's oldest insane asylums, in London, England, on one hand, and a somewhat longer history on insanity on the other. And while it has been slammed in at least one review as a bum deal for providers the fact remains that for much of history the treatment of mental illness has been barbaric in the extreme. It has ranged from beatings and slave labor to Freudian quackery to drugs to lobotomies and electroshock therapies and has been marked with failure throughout. While there have been a few bright moments in the storm, including the introduction of ballroom dancing for the inmates of Bethlem Hospital early in the 19th century and the invention of better drugs in the 20th century, much of the barbarism continues to this day. Yet the book has its lighter moments, such as mention of such outsider artists as Richard Dadd to the short career of the mental health activist Pete Shaughnassy, and gladdens the heart with compassion. I suggest this book to anyone looking for further background. It is an informative read.
March 14, 2021
If you are looking for true insight into the notorious hospital known as Bedlam, this is the wrong place. There is a mish-mash of what could be several books, but nothing really contiguous. The author jumps through history as convenient and tells stories that are not even tangentially connected to the hospital. If you want a book of name-dropping, some light looks at medieval psychiatry, some information about Bedlam, and chapters that you have to slog through only to find they don’t apply at all, this is your book. It’s really a shame because I am a psychology student and history of the science is of particular interest.
May 11, 2023
Arnold does it again.
A comprehensive and shocking history of the mental hospital dubbed Bedlam from the dark ages all the way to the present day. All told with wit, care and intelligence.
Great stuff as always by Arnold
5/5 highly recommended
A comprehensive and shocking history of the mental hospital dubbed Bedlam from the dark ages all the way to the present day. All told with wit, care and intelligence.
Great stuff as always by Arnold
5/5 highly recommended
February 18, 2019
Interesting and accessible history of Bedlam hospital. Covers different historical approaches to the treatment of mental illness. Very sad in places.
December 5, 2018
I was impressed with the detail & research that went into this book, although in parts it was hard going due to the amount of trivia. The chapter on King George III’s madness was my favourite, dispelling many myths from previous volumes. I’m going to give this a second read in the future but might limit myself to a chapter a week in order to absorb it more slowly.
October 17, 2012
A fascinating look at the rich and chequered history of Bedlam, as well as our changing attitudes and treatment of the mentally ill.
Abounding with many facts and anecdotes about asylum life, I was astounded at the shocking cases of appalling treatment and the management of the asylums, both from the days when better off and bored visitors could trawl through the hospital, awash with drink, gawping at the poor maniacs in their chains for a fee, right up until its more modern incarnation.
Particulary interesting around the treatment and perceptions of women, we're now a far cry from the days when it was thought that our wombs travelled around our bodies causing hysteria, but not so far from the 'delightful' and deranged opinions of the Victorian men working in the fields of psychiatry. From Dr Edward Tilt, who:
Abounding with many facts and anecdotes about asylum life, I was astounded at the shocking cases of appalling treatment and the management of the asylums, both from the days when better off and bored visitors could trawl through the hospital, awash with drink, gawping at the poor maniacs in their chains for a fee, right up until its more modern incarnation.
Particulary interesting around the treatment and perceptions of women, we're now a far cry from the days when it was thought that our wombs travelled around our bodies causing hysteria, but not so far from the 'delightful' and deranged opinions of the Victorian men working in the fields of psychiatry. From Dr Edward Tilt, who:
"regarded menstruation as so dangerous that it should be retarded for as long as possible, with the aid of cold showers, meat-free diets and the wearing of drawers. He maintained that feather beds and novels, on the other hand, could only hasten sexual maturity."and who:
"regarded menopausal women as pitiful creatures, and the idea of their partaking in sexual intercourse ridiculous and absurd. Husbands of menopausal women were advised to withhold their conjugal rights, and he recommended that any stirrings of desire should be treated with ice-cold douches, ice enemas and the aplication of leeches to the labia."to the even more deranged Dr Isaac Baker Brown, who introducted clitorectomy as a cure for female insanity, and who was:
"convinced that madness was caused by masturbation and that by removing the clitoris he was saving women from a life of hysteria, spinal irritation, idiocy, mania and death."If you pay any attention at all to the (mostly male) politicians currently spouting off on women's rights, it seems we've not come so far as we thought...
September 10, 2016
Mental Health and particularly the treatment of the mentally ill is something that fascinates me. When I discovered this book, I could not wait to read it. I was ready to sink my teeth into a history of Bedlam and how mental healthcare has developed through the ages. In some ways that is what this book delivers… but it’s a bit like reading the ramblings of one of its inmates.
I’ve never read something so disjointed. It flies backwards and forwards through time and just as you think you are about learn something of substance about the origins or the hospital or the treatments carried out there you are pinged back into more anecdotal prattling in mediaeval English.
After I had managed to face the fact that there would be lots of passages quoted from Olde English texts (which weren’t particularly informative) I still had the factual hopscotch through time to contend with and I just couldn’t adjust to it. I don’t know if it’s the obsessive compulsive part of me but if you are going to arrange a book as a chronology, you need to stick to it not ping from 1700 back to 1651 and then forwards to 1700 again.
Arnold mentions so many names in her book that they become completely redundant. Some are significant names such as influential characters who were part of the hospital, some good and some bad, others were just names for the sake of names. John Smith said this and Jane Brown said that and there was an inmate called Bob and another one called Mary.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was able to fish a fact out of this historical soup it was very interesting but not at all digestible in my opinion and as a result I’m afraid I’ve removed the rest of Arnold’s historical book about London from my to-reads list.
2/5. I’m sure this book is incredibly well researched and I bet Arnold hasn’t missed a thing, but sometimes a little too much information is detrimental
I’ve never read something so disjointed. It flies backwards and forwards through time and just as you think you are about learn something of substance about the origins or the hospital or the treatments carried out there you are pinged back into more anecdotal prattling in mediaeval English.
After I had managed to face the fact that there would be lots of passages quoted from Olde English texts (which weren’t particularly informative) I still had the factual hopscotch through time to contend with and I just couldn’t adjust to it. I don’t know if it’s the obsessive compulsive part of me but if you are going to arrange a book as a chronology, you need to stick to it not ping from 1700 back to 1651 and then forwards to 1700 again.
Arnold mentions so many names in her book that they become completely redundant. Some are significant names such as influential characters who were part of the hospital, some good and some bad, others were just names for the sake of names. John Smith said this and Jane Brown said that and there was an inmate called Bob and another one called Mary.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was able to fish a fact out of this historical soup it was very interesting but not at all digestible in my opinion and as a result I’m afraid I’ve removed the rest of Arnold’s historical book about London from my to-reads list.
2/5. I’m sure this book is incredibly well researched and I bet Arnold hasn’t missed a thing, but sometimes a little too much information is detrimental
May 23, 2016
I didn't really know anything about Bedlam before reading this book and I am sad to say, I don't really know any more about it now that I had dragged myself through what has to be the most boring book I have ever had the misfortune to read.
If only I had given up on it sooner and saved some minutes of my life.
I think the author must have been going through many 'lets write about that', 'lets also write about that' moments when planning this book, then she ended up trying to write them all at the same time....without much success.
There is just no substance to this book, she starts to talk about one person for a couple of lines, then heads off along another tangent and never actually comes back to the person she was talking about and provides very little information about the person in question.
Maybe the best option is to just to look for better books on the subject from the vast amount of references provided at the end of the book (possibly the most interesting bit).
If you are looking to learn more about this subject and are considering buying this book...please don't as you won't find yourself any better off at the long, bitter end of the best part of 300 pages!
If only I had given up on it sooner and saved some minutes of my life.
I think the author must have been going through many 'lets write about that', 'lets also write about that' moments when planning this book, then she ended up trying to write them all at the same time....without much success.
There is just no substance to this book, she starts to talk about one person for a couple of lines, then heads off along another tangent and never actually comes back to the person she was talking about and provides very little information about the person in question.
Maybe the best option is to just to look for better books on the subject from the vast amount of references provided at the end of the book (possibly the most interesting bit).
If you are looking to learn more about this subject and are considering buying this book...please don't as you won't find yourself any better off at the long, bitter end of the best part of 300 pages!
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October 20, 2012I admit to a taste for odd books, and this book is definitely odd. But I loved reading it, and am glad that I was not mentally ill in England before modern treatments and modern drugs.
The original Bethlehem Hospital was founded in 1247 in Bishopsgate in London to care for the poor, sick, and aged. In 1377 the indigent mentality ill were sent to the hospital at Bethlem (as the hospital was called). Over the next several hundred years the hospital went through several different locations, with many different theories of how to treat those people considered mad.
At varying times, those considered mad could include people who were epileptic, suffering from dementia, depressives, and schizophrenics. In fact, any condition that meant a person could not take care of himself or herself, or that the person’s family could not care for them, could mean a stay at Bethlem.
This book is a fascinating history of the place that brought the word “Bedlam” into the English language, and I am glad to have read it.
The original Bethlehem Hospital was founded in 1247 in Bishopsgate in London to care for the poor, sick, and aged. In 1377 the indigent mentality ill were sent to the hospital at Bethlem (as the hospital was called). Over the next several hundred years the hospital went through several different locations, with many different theories of how to treat those people considered mad.
At varying times, those considered mad could include people who were epileptic, suffering from dementia, depressives, and schizophrenics. In fact, any condition that meant a person could not take care of himself or herself, or that the person’s family could not care for them, could mean a stay at Bethlem.
This book is a fascinating history of the place that brought the word “Bedlam” into the English language, and I am glad to have read it.
July 5, 2019
I was enticed by the subject and was hoping for a nuanced overview of the history of Bedlam. I was left a bit disappointed to be honest. I found the writing style messy, jumping chronologically all over the place. I get that the author was exploring different attitudes to the mentally ill but then this really requires another book. Either write a history of Bedlam or a history of attitudes towards the mentally ill in England over the last 800 years. Trying to get both into a book less than 300 pages is a huge challenge. Then throw in some philosophy and the history of the lad in contemporary literature at various stages and you have exactly was your title states: Bedlam. Maybe this was intended who knows but it reminded me of one of my early assignments at university. A bit rushed and lacking in clarity and direction. Sorry.
May 29, 2011
A fascinating history of Bethlehem hospital, one of the first hospitals (estb 1247) in the UK for the mentally disturbed. The early treatments for mental illness are quite disturbing and more than a few employees were criminals and must have had mental issues of their own. Very illuminating about how the views of mental illness have changed over time. In the Victorian times for example, mental institutions were used more as a method of social control than asylums for the ill. Bad luck for you if you were a single unmarried lady with bad PMS! Contains some fascinating yet sad case histories of some of its most famous occupants, Antonia White and Richard Dadd for example. I'm now keen to read Arnold's 'Necropolis' - a history of London's dead.
July 4, 2011
If William Hogarth's classic painting is your idea of Bethlem Hospital, you’re not alone. Having trained in an asylum with a long and illustrious history (even Dickens visited Hartford’s Retreat–founded in 1822 and now The Institute of Living–during his first American tour and public access to mental institutions was common practice at that time both in Great Britain and the U.S.), I’ve always been interested in learning more about (the often notorious) Bethlem Royal Hospital. Its location has changed several times over, and the building Victoria would’ve known is now the Imperial War Museum which I’ve visited. Arnold’s book is a fascinating look at the hospital’s history, whose development mirrors changing conceptions, both legal and medical, on mental illness within Great Britain.
December 29, 2016
I struggled to almost half way through. I cannot endure another senseless chapter with no direction that has little to no relation to lunatics. Perhaps it is my own fault I expected a book about wrongly imprisoned patients, medieval treatments and terrible conditions. Whereas by page 111 I had gotten a long list of owners and some mess of a diatribe on witch hunts? okay. Thanks but no thanks. I am certain this will appeal to people who just want to know random things about some other things that happened having a slight relation to the physical site of "Bethlam".
This is just my opinion please respect mine and I will respect yours.
This is just my opinion please respect mine and I will respect yours.
January 23, 2019
Sadly a case of the synopsis being better than the book.
I was looking forward to reading this book but found it to be full of waffle about not very much. I would’ve preferred a more in depth look at the treatment of the patients and inmates. The book only briefly touches on these subjects and the differences between treatments through the ages.
I’ve given it 2 stars as parts were really good and the last chapter about shell shock was really interesting.
I was looking forward to reading this book but found it to be full of waffle about not very much. I would’ve preferred a more in depth look at the treatment of the patients and inmates. The book only briefly touches on these subjects and the differences between treatments through the ages.
I’ve given it 2 stars as parts were really good and the last chapter about shell shock was really interesting.
September 1, 2015
If the truth is to be told, this book doesn’t fall into my usual reads.
The book was handed to me by a relative as a general interest kind of read, as something she thought I might enjoy. It was interesting, I will say that, but I cannot see myself going out of my way to read it again and again or to read that many more books like it.
It was simply something different to pick up and read.
The book was handed to me by a relative as a general interest kind of read, as something she thought I might enjoy. It was interesting, I will say that, but I cannot see myself going out of my way to read it again and again or to read that many more books like it.
It was simply something different to pick up and read.
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