Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catharine Arnold

As well as focusing on 'Bedlam' itself, Catharine Arnold looks at the wider issue of madness in London and how the mentally ill were treated generally throughout the life of the hospital. This makes for a surprisingly wide-ranging book and one that doesn't become stale.

Bethlehem Hospital has been in existence since 1247, though in various locations around the capital. It survived scandals, both of cruelty and fraud, and the Great Fire of 1666 along with numerous problems surrounding the building itself. Arnold blends an ongoing narrative about the hospital with an examination of contemporary treatments of madness using primary sources wherever possible. This creates a sense of coherence, binding the hospital to wider events. One of the most interesting of these, for me, was the madness of George III which Arnold explores in chapter seven.

There are some surprisingly individual stories which appear in these pages. Perhaps my only criticism of the book is that we can't follow these people through their lives, though the author can hardly be held to blame for the shoddy record-keeping of previous centuries! I would recommend this book to anyone who would like an overview of London's record at caring for and treating mentally ill patients or a specific look at Bethlehem Hospital itself. Arnold's style is both accessible and involved, making this an easy book to digest but with many things to learn along the way. I'll leave you with a taster of it:

"The flames engulfed the wooden structure and spread swiftly to the surrounding properties, despite the efforts of two soldiers to pull them down. The screaming mob, the distant sound of gunfire, the terrified citizens running out of their houses and the sky itself, deadly red from soaring flames that produced a drift of smoky particles, created a vision of hell. To which was added an even more infernal dimension: the gutters blazed with burning alcohol. Flaming spirits ran through every crack and fissure, forming a deep pool into which people dropped down dead by the dozen. Scooping up the liquid in their bare hands, they drank until they died: husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their breasts. Some passed out straight away; others danced, half in triumph, half in torment, until they fell into the liquor that had killed them. Burns victims, their clothing still ablaze, mistook it for water and unwittingly hurled themselves into the lake of fire, dying in agony." (p144)

A Logical Conclusion to a Grandmother-Shaped Mystery?

One of the most amusing things about my grandmother moving into sheltered accommodation is how she's adjusting to it. After all, this is a woman who has lived independently for plenty of her 87 years. For instance, as her hearing diminished she grew accustomed to turning the television up just that little bit more. Living in a corner bungalow that was fine. Living in sheltered accommodation...maybe not so much. The other evening my dad came upstairs laughing uncontrollably to give me the phone. It was my grandmother on the other end - and she'd caused a bit of a problem.

A few weeks ago she got new hearing aids. Last weekend when we picked her up from the flat I noticed there was a buzzing in the room but I didn't mention it, wanting desperately to get away and not have an hour's debate on the issue. Still, when we dropped her back off my dad noticed it as well and she confirmed it was her hearing aids. They hadn't buzzed at all while we were out so my dad and I privately deduced it was down to some electrical interference somewhere in the building. We didn't mention to her; we didn't want her fretting.

Apparently, though, on Monday the buzzing became too much for her. She took the hearing aids out, closed the door between the living room and the hallway to block the noise and turned the television up to a volume she could hear without the hearing aids. At around half past nine she turned the television off and realised there was someone banging on the door. When she answered it the warden was stood there...with four firemen beside her. I think it was then my grandmother realised the fire alarm above her head was going off.

Well, the firemen and the warden checked all over. Absolutely nothing on fire. She'd eaten around six so the cooker was ice cold. The most she'd done in the last hour was boil the kettle. Everyone was baffled but were sympathetic with the situation - an elderly woman's hearing aids hurt so she took them out, she closed the door so she wouldn't disturb the neighbours and therefore didn't hear the fire alarm going off. The actions of someone trying to be conscientious. This was the first time the sheltered accommodation had ever had the fire brigade out. Quite a feat for my grandmother considering she's only been in there a couple of months. Anyway, the warden put the false alarm down to a fault before she and the firemen left.

After we'd stopped laughing me and my dad talked it over. Something in the flat, and the building in general, was interfering with my grandmother's hearing aids. Isn't it plausible that the something was the fire alarm system? And, if that is the case, isn't it plausible that, working along the same frequency as they obviously were, the hearing aids caused a sudden glitch in the fire alarm system?

Ah, this all conjecture. But, as I mentioned, she moved in less than three months ago. The flat was given a full safety check before then. Odd the fire alarm sprung a fault just as she'd begun to get buzzing in her ears, though, eh?