Some of the developments of their care for the insane in the Middle Ages are very interesting. Before this period closed, there was a custom established at Bedlam by which those who had been insane but had become much better were allowed to leave the institution. This was true, even though apparently there might be no friends to care for them particularly, or to guarantee their conduct or their return, in case of redevelopment of their symptoms. This amounted practically to the open-door system. The authorities of the hospital, however, made one requirement. Those who had been insane and were allowed to leave Bedlam were required to wear a badge or plate on the arm, indicating that they had been for some time in this hospital for the insane. These people came to be known as Bedlamites, or Bedlams, or Bedlamers, and attracted so much sympathy from the community generally that some of the ne'er-do-wells, the tramps and sturdy vagrants who have always been with the world as a problem quite as well as the insane, obtained possession of these insignia by fraud or stealth, and imposed on the charity of the people of the time. It is easy to understand that wherever these patients were recognized by their badges as having been for a time in an asylum for the insane, they were treated quite differently from ordinary people. Though allowed to leave the asylum, and left, as it were, without surveillance, they were really committed to the care of the community generally. No one who knows the history is likely to irritate a person who has been insane, nor are such people treated in the same spirit as those who are supposed to have been always normal, but out of pity and sympathy they are particularly cared for. They are not expected to live the same workaday existence as mentally healthy individuals, but their pathway in life is smoothed as much as possible. Many an unfortunate incident in modern times is due to the fact that a previous inmate of an asylum is irritated beyond his power to control himself in the ordinary affairs of life by those who know nothing of his previous mental weakness. It is not unlikely that our open-door system will have to be supplemented by some such arrangement as this medieval requirement of a badge, and that we can actually get suggestions from the medieval people with regard to the care of the insane that will be valuable for us.