Читать книгу Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles - Daniel Hack Tuke - Страница 10

"In his chill veins the sluggish puddle flows,

And loads with lazy fogs his sable brows;

Legions of lunaticks about him press,

His province is lost Reason to redress."

Of the family whose hereditary connection with Bethlem is so remarkable, it should be chronicled that Dr. James Monro was elected physician to Bethlem, 1728; he died 1752. His son describes him as "a man of admirable discernment, who treated insanity with an address that will not soon be equalled." Dr. John Monro succeeded his father in this post. "He limited his practice almost exclusively to insanity, and in the treatment of that disease is said to have attained to greater eminence and success than any of his contemporaries. In January, 1783, while still in full business, he was attacked with paralysis.... His vigour, both of body and mind, began from that time to decline. In 1787 his son, Dr. Thomas Monro, was appointed his assistant at Bethlem Hospital, and he then gradually withdrew from business."[91] He died in 1791, aged 77. He was the author of "Remarks on Dr. Battie's Treatise on Madness, 1758." Dr. Thomas Monro was appointed physician to Bethlem in 1792, and held that office till 1816; he died 1833, aged 73. His son, Dr. Edward Thomas Monro, succeeded him.

We now arrive at the close of the second Act in the drama of the Royal Hospital of Bethlehem. The scene of Act the Third is laid in St. George's Fields. The area of land covered about twelve acres. Provision was made for two hundred patients. In 1810 an Act of Parliament was obtained (50 Geo. III., c. 198), by which the City was authorized to grant the property to trustees for the governors of the hospital, for the purpose of erecting a new one on an enlarged scale—on lease for eight hundred and sixty-five years, at a yearly rent of 1s. The Corporation entered upon the spot occupied by the old hospital in Moorfields. The first stone was laid in St. George's Fields in April, 1812, and it was opened August, 1815, consisting of a centre and two wings, the frontage extending five hundred and ninety-four feet. "The former has a portico, raised on a flight of steps, and composed of six columns of the Ionic order, surmounted by their entablature, and a pediment in the tympanum on which is a relief of the Royal arms. The height to apex is sixty feet." There is the following inscription:

"Hen. VIII. Rege fundatum. Civium Largitas perfecit."

The funds were derived from the following sources:—

	£	s.	d.
Grant from Parliament	72,819	0	6
Benefactions from Public Bodies	5,405	0	0
Private Individuals	5,709	0	0
Amount of Interest upon Balances in hand	14,873	4	8
Contributed from funds of Hospital	23,766	2	3
	£122,572	7	5

Even in this new building, opened before the conclusion of the labours of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1815-16, the windows of the patients' bedrooms were not glazed, nor were the latter warmed; the basement gallery was miserably damp and cold; there was no provision for lighting the galleries by night, and their windows were so high from the ground that the patients could not possibly see out, while the airing-courts were cheerless and much too small. Such was the description given by a keen observer, Sydney Smith, from personal inspection.[92]

Additional buildings were erected in 1838, the first stone being laid July 26th of that year, when a public breakfast was given at a cost of £464; and a narrative of the event at a cost of £140; a generous outlay of charitable funds! We may be quite sure that no one who breakfasted at Bethlem on this occasion had any reason to be reminded of Sir Walter Scott's observation in a letter dated March 16, 1831: "I am tied by a strict regimen to diet and hours, and, like the poor madman in Bedlam, most of my food tastes of oatmeal porridge."

Of the site of the third Bethlem Hospital a few words will suffice. The notorious tavern called "The Dog and Duck" was here, and there is still to be seen in the wall to the right of the entrance to the hospital a representation in stone of the dog, with the neck of a duck in its mouth. It bears the date of 1716. In Mr. Timbs' "London" it is misstated 1617. Doubtless in olden time there was a pond here, for a duck hunt was a common sport, and brought in much custom to the inn. After the Dog and Duck, this site was occupied by a blind school, pulled down in 1811.

Shakespeare makes the Duke of York say in "Henry VI.":—

"Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;

Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's Fields."

2 Henry VI., Act v. sc. 1.

The only other reference in Shakespeare to this locality indicates that in his time there was a Windmill Inn in St. George's Fields, for he makes Shallow say to Falstaff—

"O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the Windmill, in Saint George's Fields?"—2 Henry IV., Act iii. sc. 2.

The subsequent history of Bethlem Royal Hospital; the considerable improvements which succeeded the investigation; the inquiry and admirable Report of the Charity Commissioners in 1837, from which it appears that at that time some of the patients were still chained, and that the funds of Bethlem had been to no slight extent appropriated to personal uses; its exemption from the official visitation of asylums required by the Act of Parliament passed in 1845 (8 and 9 Vict., c. 100);[93] the unsatisfactory condition of the institution as revealed by the investigations made in 1851 (June 28 to December 4); the placing of the hospital in 1853 in the same position as regards inspection as other institutions for the insane (16 and 17 Vict., c. 96); the sweeping away of the old régime, and the introduction of a new order of things—the great lesson to be learned from this history being, as I think, the necessity of having lunatic asylums open to periodical visitation—and last, but not least, the establishment of a Convalescent Hospital at Witley within the last few years;—these important events I must content myself with merely enumerating, but I cannot close this chapter without expressing the satisfaction with which I regard the present management of the hospital, all the more striking when we recall some of the past pages of its history; nor can I avoid congratulating the resident physician and the other officers of the institution upon this result.