The art of medicine: Bethlem: A museum of the mind

摘要

In 1930, Bethlem Royal Hospital, one of the world's oldest hospitals for people with mental illness, ended its long history as a central London landmark and moved out to the suburbs. Its new home was the Monks Orchard estate, formerly home to the Member of Parliament and banker Samuel Jones Loyd, but now standing empty after an unsuccessful attempt to sell it at auction in 1920. This was to be a momentous change for Bethlem's patients and staff. Bethlem's chaplain, Geoffrey O'Donoghue, paid several exploratory visits to the hospital's prospective home in the mid-192Os, and reported back to the staff and patients in a series of articles in Under the Dome, the in-house magazine. O'Donoghue described the estate as a "garden of Eden, destined hereafter to seclude our Adams and Eves from a noisy inquisitive world", and noted approvingly the "delightful pleasure gardens and grounds" adjoining the mansion. Bethlem's move in search of, as O'Donoghue put it, "a clearer, bluer sky", was late in coming. As early as 1808, King George Ill's "Act for the Better Care and Maintenance of Lunatics" had encouraged local authorities to "fix upon an airy and healthy Situation" when planning their asylums, and subsequent decades saw the development of a ring of institutions in the countryside around London, including Hanwell, Springfield, Stone House, and Colney Hatch.