Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British IslesTuke, Daniel Hack
History
Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles
Tuke, Daniel Hack
Mental health laws -- Great Britain; Mental illness -- Great Britain; Mentally ill -- Care; Psychiatric hospitals -- Great Britain
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.
ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL.
To the foregoing account of Bethlem Hospital it is necessary to add a
brief reference to that of St. Luke's, which, in consequence of the
insufficiency of Bethlem, was established in 1751, by voluntary
subscription, and was situated on the north side of Upper
Moorfields,[94] opposite Bethlem Hospital, in a locality called Windmill
Hill, facing what is now Worship Street. It is stated that pupils were
allowed to attend the hospital in 1753. It appears that Dr. Battie, the
physician to the hospital, who also had a private asylum, was the first
in London to deliver lectures on mental diseases. He wrote "A Treatise
on Madness," in 1758, and in this work censured the medical practice
pursued at Bethlem. He was warmly replied to by Dr. John Monro, in a
book entitled "Remarks on Dr. Battie's 'Treatise on Madness.'" His
"Aphorismi de Cognoscendis et Curandis Morbis nonnullis ad Principia
Animalia accommodati" appeared in 1762. In 1763 he was examined before
the House of Commons as to the state of private mad-houses in England.
In April, 1764, he resigned, dying in 1776, from a paralytic stroke. His
character was described by Judge Hardinge, as follows:--"Battius, faber
fortunæ suæ, vir egregiæ fortitudinis et perseverantiæ, medicus
perspicax, doctus et eruditus integritatis castissimæ, fideique in
amicitiis perspectæ."
Dr. Battie did not escape satire:--[95]
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