BEDLAM (ME. Bedlem, corrupted, in popu lar speech, from Bethicm, Bethlehem, shorter for 'Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem'). The name of a hospital for lunatics, in Saint George's Fields. Southwark, London. It was originally founded in Bishopsgate Street With out, in 1246, by Simon Fitz-Mary, one of the sheriffs of London, as "a priory of canons with brethren and sisters." When the religious houses were suppressed by Henry VIII., this one fell into the possession of the corporation of London, which converted it into an asylum for 50 or 60 insane persons. In the year 1675 the hospital was taken down, and a new one, affording ac commodation for about 150 patients, was erected in Moorfields, at a cost of about /17.000. In 1814 the hospital was again pulled down, and the patients were transferred to a new hospital in Saint George's Fields, erected for 198 patients, but in 1MS extended so as to accommodate 166 more. The building, with its grounds, now covers an area of 14 acres, and is lacking in nothing likely to insure the comfort or promote the recovery of patients. In former times the
patients were exhibited to the public, like wild beasts in cages, at so much per head, and vis itors made sport of them, as told by l'epys and and shown in Ilogarth's pictures. The funds of the hospital not being sufficient to meet the expenditure, partially convalescent patients, with badges affixed to their arms, and known as or 'Bedlam beggars,' were turned out to wander and beg in the streets. Edgar, in Shakespeare's Lear, assumes the char acter of one of these. This practice, however, appears to have been stopped before 1675, for an advertisement in the London Gazette of that date, from the governors of Bedlam, cautions the public against giving alms to vagrants repre senting themselves as from the hospital, no per mission to beg being at that time given to pa tients. At present 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.