Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

either whipping or exhibiting the insane were 'advocated' by 'every [classical] treatise on the
management of the mad'6 . On the contrary, very few medical writers actively espoused such
practices, and many were actually sharply critical, from at least the late seventeenth century on-
wards. Ailderidge has already waspishly exposed some of the inadequacies in historians versions
of visits to Bethlem, and some of what I shall be saying in this section will simply be reinforcing
her comments and attempting to put the picture straight7.
The most insightful analyses of public visiting (particularly Foucault, Porter) have suggested
a more positive side, and made it impossible to envisage its abolition as an uncomplicated act of
enlightenment. Foucault's assessment of the classical age as a time when 'the eyes of reason.. .no
longer felt any relation to [madness]', now needs to be balanced with Porter's view that eigh-
teenth century men 'did not, pace Foucault, feel that lunacy was something to quarantine but
rather to experience'8 . Ultimately, however, Porter's acceptance that it was 'the age of sensi-
bility' which 'condemned' madness as 'ghoulish', is not greatly removed (if less developed) from
Foucault and Doerner's notion of displaying the insane as a prior stage in the neutralisation of
madness9 . According to the latter model, the 'organised exhibition' or glorification of 'scandal',
'to serve a moralising purpose', paved the way for a more thorough going sequestration of the
insane 'from the general public', their anaesthetising within the realm of medical science 10 The
formulaic style of such models must occasionally be abandoned if we are fully to appreciate the
'many faces' worn by madness". Fundamental questions about the meaning of visiting remain
unanswered, however.
Was the exclusion of the public and, increasingly, of the friends of patients from the in-
sane at Bethlem and elsewhere, from the second half of the eighteenth century, a product of
enlightenment or of intense embarrassment in attitudes to madness ? Or, more specifically,
were the advantages of the ticket system, introduced at Bethlem in 1770, 'outweighed' by the
disadvantages of 'reduced contact between inmates and the public, and by diminished public
6 Scull, Museums, 64; Social Order/Mental Disorder, 51.
Allderidge, Bedlam: Fact or Fantasy.
8 Foncault, Madness, 70; Porter, M,nd-Forg'dMsnscles: A History of Madness in England/rem SAc Restora-
Sion to the Regency (London, The Athione Press, 1987), 14.
Porter, Manacles, 14; Doerner, Madmen Borgeoisse, 40; Foucault, Madness, eap. chaps I & II.
10 Foucault, Madness, 70; Doerner, Madmen 1 Bourgeoisie, 40.
Porter, Manacles, 18.
12