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

the weather in contemporary medical writings, from Willis to Arnold 203. The accuracy of this
observation is beyond doubt. To what extent the strength of this mind-set explains (or, itself,
evidences) the primitive conditions in which the mad were kept at Bethiem (or elsewhere), or
inhibited any improvement in those conditions, is less clear, however. The Governors of Bethlem
never sought to justify or extenuate patients' exposure to cold at the hospital with reference to
such formulations. Indeed, despite Scull's forceful and valuable argument concerning unconscious
motivations behind the expoetulations of policy makers, the Bethlem Board went to considerable
efforts to clothe and otherwise preserve patients from the cold over the course of the period.
Scull's argument that the 'set of immunities' attributed to the mad was 'extended' during the first
half of the eighteenth century, is also debateable. While Mead averred that the mad acquired
immunity to the effects of bodily illness, others, and notably, the Bethlem Physician, John
Monro, himself, disagreed 204 . By the 17409 at least, doubts were already being expressed about
the efficacy of, and patients insensibility to, the cold. While Frings recommended 'Air...inclining
to be cold' for the cure of phrensy, 'too cold Air' was 'to be avoided, as it condenses the Pores'
and 'in'ensibly puts a stop to Perspiration'205 . By 1765, fires were lit first thing (i.e. 6 or 7a.m.)
every morning, not just in the stove rooms (which the Matron was to check before 8a.m. during
winter), but in the surgery and infirmary, and those patients deemed 'proper' were carried down
to the appropriate room 206 . Facilities may still have fallen short of those at St. Luke's, Old
Street, where there were 'two sitting rooms in each gallery', but, even at Bethiem, there were
'four Fireplaces in the different Gallerys on the Womens side' alone, although neither these,
nor that in the surgery, were ordered 'Inclosed for the Security of the Patients from Fire' until
203 See Scull, Social Order/Mental Disorder, 57; Willie, SonI of Brsfes, 205; Mead, Medics Sacr,s, 619, 'all
[my emphasis] mad folks in general bear hunger, cold, and any other inclemency of the weather...all bodily
inconveniences, with surprising ease'; idern, Precepts, 79-80, 90-91; William Salmon, A Compleat System of
Pkpsick, Theoretical and Practical (London, 1686), 37, 56-61; Zachary Mayne, Two Disser-ttziions Concerning
Sense, and the Imagination, with an Essay on Conaciossne.a (London, 1728); Thomas Arnold, Observations on
the Nahre, Kinds, Gasse, and Prevention of Insanity (London, 1806), 2 vole, 2nd edn, vol. i, 4-5.
204 Mead's (and others') assertion that madness frequently prolonged life, invigorating the bodily constitution
against disease, was only partially adopted by William Rattle, who merely claimed that 'Original Madness is in
itself very little prejudicial to animal life', and that the mad live as long as the sane. Battle's argument was
repudiated by John Monro, however, as totally specious. Monro objected 'that madness destroys Iwo thirds of
those who are afihicted with it through life' and that the insane were particularly subject to a whole host of severe
bodily aflllctibns, including apoplexies' and 'convulsions'. Monro's statement is confirmed, not surprisingly, by
causes of death given in the hospital's Admission Registers. See Baltic, Treatise, 61; Monro, Remarks, 26-7.
205 Frings, Treatise, 41.
206 BCGM, 20 June 1765, 135-6.
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