Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles. Daniel Hack Tuke

effectual principle by which to reduce the insane to orderly conduct. Instance: I observed a young woman chained by the arm to the wall in a small room with a large fire and several other patients, for having run downstairs to the committee-room door. The building has entirely the appearance of a place of confinement, enclosed by high walls, and there are strong iron grates to the windows. Many of the windows are not glazed, but have inner shutters, which are closed at night. On the whole, I think St. Luke's stands in need of a radical reform."

In 1841 the infirmaries at each end of St. Luke's were fitted up for the reception of male and female patients. In 1842 a chaplain was appointed, and the present chapel set apart for worship. Open fireplaces were placed in each of the galleries. The old method of coercion was abolished; padded rooms were made available for the treatment of the paroxysm; additional attendants were hired; and an airing-ground was laid out and set apart for the use of the noisy and refractory patients. Wooden doors were substituted for the iron gates of the galleries, and the removal of the wire guards from the windows inside of the galleries added much to their cheerfulness. The bars on the doors of the bedrooms, and the screens outside the windows of the galleries were also ordered to be removed. In 1843 the reading-rooms for the male and female patients were completed, and a library containing two hundred volumes was supplied by the kindness of the treasurer; an amusement fund was established for the purchase of bagatelle and backgammon boards, and other games for the use of the patients. In 1845 the hospital came under the provisions of the Lunacy Act (8 and 9 Vict., c. 100). Since the Lunacy Act of that year, the affairs of the hospital have been subjected to the control of the Commissioners, in addition to that of the House Committee and Board of Governors. Gas was introduced in 1848 into the hospital. In 1849 the pauper burial-ground at the back of the hospital was closed.[99] Numerous improvements have been made in recent years, especially in regard to the appearance of the galleries. The next improvement will be, I hope, to build a third St. Luke's, in the country.

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      [57] Dugdale's "Monasticon," vol. vi. pt. ii. pp. 621, 622. Rot. Claus. de ann. 4 Hen. IV. Videsis bundell. de beneficii Alienig. de anno 48 Edw. III. Et. Pat. 11 Edw. II. p. 2, m. 24. The Hospital or Priory of Bethlem must not be confounded with the Priory of St. Mary Spital, or New Hospital of our Lady without Bishopsgate, founded 1197.

      The following were Masters or Priors of the Hospital: Robert Lincoln, 12 Rich. II.; Robert Dale, 1 Hen. IV.; Edw. Atherton, 15 Hen. VI. He was clerk of the closet to the King. John Arundel, 35 Hen. VI.; Thomas Hervy, 37 Hen. VI.; John Browne, later in the same year; John Smeathe or Sneethe, 49 Hen. VI. John Davyson was removed 19 Edw. IV., when Walter Bate and William Hobbes were made custodes, with benefit of survivorship as Master to either (Dugdale, op. cit., p. 622).

[58] French, crèche, a manger.

[59] Argent, two bars sable, a labell of five points, throughout gules, on a chief azure, an estoile of sixteen points, or, charged with a plate thereon, a cross of the third between a human skull, in a cup on the dexter side, and a basket of bread, i.e. wastell cakes, all of the fifth, on the sinister.

[60] Stow, edit. 1603, p. 452. On Bethlem, see p. 166.

[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 Wiltshire," 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 brass, 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