X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Bethlem Royal Hospital


Doctor Bedlam

His name comes from the Bethlem Royal Hospital insane asylum, and is a reference to his madness-inducing "paranoid pill".

Edwin A. Clear

In the early 1930s Clear's mental health began to deteriorate, resulting in him eventually being admitted to the Bethlem Royal Hospital, where he died in 1960.


Spendthrift

William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress (1732–33) displays in a series of paintings the spiralling fortunes of a wealthy but spendthrift son and heir who loses his money, and who as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bedlam.


see also