Throughout its long history, the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, colloquially known as Bedlam, has been the center of rumors of patient abuse and neglect. These rumors continue to permeate the history of madness even though recent studies have tried to depict Bethlem as a misunderstood institution which did the best it could. The truth lies somewhere between these two poles. Historical Bethlem was a place where the insane were indeed mistreated, and 1642 and 1658 were the years when abuse became the norm for centuries to come. The years of the Civil War and Interregnum were of special importance to Bethlem, marking the point when it became not only a hospital with an undeclared policy for the tolerance of patient abuse and neglect, but a financially solvent hospital as well. After the careful examination of the administrative records of the Bethlem Court of Governors for the years 1642-1659, this study reports that not only did abuse occur in Bethlem, but that the administration at the hospital, its Court of Governors, was aware of such abuse and preferred to turn a blind eye to patient abuse and neglect, occasionally becoming party to such offenses themselves if the price was right.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 1991. / BLDSC reference no.: DX187130.

This thesis examines the uses and implications of historical and self-imposed asylums in several of Samuel Beckett's works, most notably Murphy, Malone Dies, and "First Love." The first half of this study compares several historical Irish and British asylums to Beckett's frictional institutions in order to illuminate the recurring motifs of sanity, asylums as retreats for the wealthy, and the links between prisons and asylums. I also examine Michel Foucault's theory of the Panopticon guards as an alternate reading of Beckett's views on sanity. In Murphy and Malone Dies, for example, Beckett questions what it means to be sane through his role reversals of nurses and patients. His often under qualified and sadistic nurses are depicted as the real lunatics while their patients seem quite sane in comparison. In the second portion of this study, I suggest that the self-imposed asylums in Murphy and "First Love" are in fact the protagonists' attempts at both erasing society and becoming physically invisible. Through and extended analysis of each text, I explore the various "cells" created by each hero as well as their social implications. By ostracizing themselves, for instance, I argue that the protagonists of Murphy and "First Love" gain a form of power that the protagonists of Molly and Malone Dies lack. Murphy's and "First Love"'s demands for "imprisonment" under their own terms once again reverse the roles of helpless patient and powerful nurse.