BEDLAM, a popular corruption of Bethlehem. the name of a hospital for lunatics, in St. George's Fields, London. It was originally founded in Bishopsgate street Without, in 1246, by Simon Fitz-Mary, one of the sheriffs of Loudon, as " a privy of canons with brethren and sisters." When the religious houses were suppressed by henry VIII., the one in Bishopsgate street fell into the possession of the corporation of London, who con verted it into an asylum for 50 or 60 insane persons. In the year 1675, the hospital was taken down, and a new one, affording accommodation for about 150 patients, was erected in Moorfields, at a cost of about L'17,000. In 1814, the hospital was again pulled down, and the patients transferred to a new hospital in St. George's fields, erected for 198 patients; but in 1833 extended so as to accommodate 166 more. The building, with its grounds, now covers an area of 14 acres, and is lacking in bottling likely to insure the comfort or promote the recovery of patients. In former times, the management of B. Was deplorable. The-patients were exhibited to the public, like wild
beasts in cages, at so much per head, and were treated and made sport of by visitors, as if they had been animals in a menagerie. The funds of the hospital not being sufficient to meet the expenditure, partially convalescent patients, with badges affixed to their arms, and known as Tom-o'-Bedlams, or "Bedlam beggars," were turned out to wander and beg in the streets. Edgar, in•Shakespeare's Lear, assumes the character of one of these. This practice, however, appears to have been stopped before 1675; an advertise ment in the London Gazette of that date, from the governors of B., cautions the public against giving alms to vagrants representing themselves as from the hospital, no per mission to beg being at that time given to patients. Now, the moral and physical man agement of the patients is so excellent, that annually more than one half of their number are returned as cured.