Bethlem Hospital, popularly known as "Bedlam", is a unique institution. Now seven hundred and fifty years old, it has been continuously involved in the care of the mentally ill in London since at least the 1400s. As such it has a strong claim to be the oldest foundation in Europe with an unbroken history of sheltering and treating the mentally disturbed. During this time, Bethlem has transcended locality to become not only a national and international institution, but in many ways, a cultural and literary myth. The History of Bethlem is a scholarly history of this key establishment by distinguished authors, including Asa Briggs and Roy Porter. Based upon extensive research of the hospital's archives, the book looks at Bethlem's role within the caring institutions of London and Britain, and provides a long overdue re-evaluation of its place in the history of psychiatry.

Now 750 years old, Bethlem Hospital has been continuously involved in the care of the mentally ill since at least 1400 - as such it has a strong claim to be the oldest foundation in Europe with an unbroken history of sheltering and treating the mentally disturbed. This text examines Bethlem's role within the caring institutions of London and Britain and its place in the history of psychiatry. Bethlem is not simply Europe's oldest psychiatric establishment; it is the most famous and the most notorious. It has assumed many guises over its 750 year history, it began as a religious foundation in the context of the Crusades. It became a hospital for the insane by accident, survived complex battles between Crown and Papacy, Parliament and the Corporation of the City of London, and gained great prominence for many years as Britain's only lunatic asylum. The name of Bethlem has actually turned into everyday speech and become part of a national culture. From Shakespeare's time, "Bedlam" was becoming detached from the institution and assuming a life and a persona.

A study of the development of the hospital as a economic, medical and voluntary institution in the second half of the nineteenth century. By the 1890s Victorians assumed that London's hospitals were facing an endemic financial crisis which was so severe that some feared the state might have to intervene to support an ailing voluntary system: charity both underpinnedLondon's hospitals and proved insufficient to meet the ever-increasing cost of care, despite the ability of those running the hospitals to pick the pockets of the benevolent. Charity and the London Hospitals takes these themes to study the development of the hospital as an economic, medical, and voluntary institution in the second half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on a comparative study of hospital records, the author investigates how and why Victorians contributed to show that benevolence was rarely amenable to a single form or reason, moving on to argue that though it remained central to the hospitals' raison d'etre, philanthropy's contribution was modified at a financial and administrative level as hospitals shifted from being philanthropic to medical institutions. Why this process occurred and the impact of professionalisation and scientific medicine are also assessed, as are the debates surrounding hospitals and the state at the end of the nineteenth century. KEIR WADDINGTON is Professor of History at Cardiff University.

Traces the evolution of medical education at Barts from its foundation in 1123 to the college's merger with The London Hospital and Queen Mary & Westfield College in 1995. Medical Education at St Bartholomew's Hospital traces the evolution of medical education at Barts from its foundation in 1123 to the college's merger with The London and Queen Mary & Westfield College in 1995. Drawing on the hospital's rich archives, it investigates how training was institutionalised and organised at Barts to explore the shifting nature of medical education between the eighteenth and late-twentieth century. Medical Education at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in analysing the history of the medical college at Barts, explores the relationship between clinical study, science and the institution to look at the rise of the hospital student, the growth of laboratory medicine, and the evolution of a research culture. It places the changing nature of training at Barts in the context of metropolitan and national developments to analyse the structure of medical training, the University of London and its impact on medical education, and the experiences of the students and staff. Questions are asked about how academic medicine developed and about the relationship between training, the bedside, teaching hospitals and the politics of healthcare and higher education. In looking at these areas, existing notions of the "development" of medical education are problematised to provide a study that explores the nature of medical education at Barts and in London. KEIR WADDINGTON is lecturer in history at Cardiff University.