It was in 1733 that two wings were added for incurable patients, but this proved insufficient in the course of time; and in 1793 an adjoining plot of ground was obtained, and more accommodation provided. Only six years later, however, surveyors appointed to inspect the premises reported that the hospital was dreary, low, melancholy, and not well aired; and in 1804 the condition of the building was so dangerous that it was resolved to admit no more patients except those already petitioned for.[86] As the asylum had been built upon the ancient ditch of the city, a large portion of the foundation was insecure. Serious settlements had taken place, and rendered it necessary to underpin the walls.[87] When one looks at the palatial building represented in engravings, one feels some surprise to find it described as so low and dreary; but doubtless it was quite time to erect another asylum, and seek a better and more open site. I do not propose to enter upon the revelations made as to the internal condition of Bethlem Hospital by the investigations of the Committee of the House of Commons in 1815;[88] many are familiar with the prints exhibited at this Committee, of poor Norris who was secured by chains as there represented, consisting of (1) a collar, encircling the neck, and confined by a chain to a pole fixed at the head of the patient's bed; (2) an iron frame, the lower part of which encircled the body, and the upper part of which passed over the shoulders, having on either side apertures for the arms, which encircled them above the elbow; (3) a chain passing from the ankle of the patient to the foot of the bed. As to the treatment pursued at this time at Bethlem, the pith of it is expressed in one sentence by Dr. T. Monro in his evidence before the Committee. He had been visiting physician since 1783. "Patients," he says, "are ordered to be bled about the latter end of May, according to the weather; and after they have been bled, they take vomits, once a week for a certain number of weeks; after that we purge the patients. That has been the practice invariably for years long before my time; it was handed down to me by my father, and I do not know any better practice." If in all this we are disposed to blame Bethlem, let us still more condemn the lamentable ignorance and miserable medical red-tapism which marked the practice of lunacy in former times.