Wow, Bedlam sounds like a horrible place. Swift showed great caritas and generosity by opening up his hospital in Ireland. I worked in a psych hospital for 2 years it was a strange experience indeed. But nothing like Bedlam. Psych hospitals today are certainly not perfect but a good deal of progress has been made in the past couple hundred years, thanks in part to Jonathan Swift. Thanks for this piece.
Theres a good pamphlet on this by the old director of St Patrick's, Norman Moore, entitled Swift's Philanthropy. This director, as you might imagine, was keen to set the record straight and shine a light on Swift setting up the hospital. Swift was well acquainted with Bethlehem Hospital, and one of the key differences he enstated with St Patrick's was that "no person whatever shall have access to the patients except in the presence of the Governors or by order of the state physician or surgeon general". A rule to prevent people paying to come and gawk at the patients.
There's a fun English folk song about the Bethlehem hospital called Boys of Bedlam, or sometimes Bedlam Boys. I like this cover by the Nova Scotian trad band Coig. https://coig.ca/track/1259025/bedlam-boys?autostart=true
Wow, Bedlam sounds like a horrible place. Swift showed great caritas and generosity by opening up his hospital in Ireland. I worked in a psych hospital for 2 years it was a strange experience indeed. But nothing like Bedlam. Psych hospitals today are certainly not perfect but a good deal of progress has been made in the past couple hundred years, thanks in part to Jonathan Swift. Thanks for this piece.
Theres a good pamphlet on this by the old director of St Patrick's, Norman Moore, entitled Swift's Philanthropy. This director, as you might imagine, was keen to set the record straight and shine a light on Swift setting up the hospital. Swift was well acquainted with Bethlehem Hospital, and one of the key differences he enstated with St Patrick's was that "no person whatever shall have access to the patients except in the presence of the Governors or by order of the state physician or surgeon general". A rule to prevent people paying to come and gawk at the patients.