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

of 'both hospitals' being 'engaged in the same good work', with 'the same object in view, the
restoration of reason to the distracted', in 1783. John Monro and Battie cooperated not only
in Courts and Committees at Bethiem, after mid-century, but testified in solidarity before the
1763 Parliamentary Committee which enquired into the state of private madhouses, and even
helped each other out in contentions arising in their private practices335.
This is not to say that St. Luke's was indeed simply a 'new Bethlem' as the London
Evening Post alleged, or that rivalry did not continue to be an important force defining policies
at the institutions3 . There are signs, even in John Monro's 1766 casebook, that there was
still a considerable friction between himself and Battie 337. The very year (1765) St. Luke's
appointed a Nurse 'to attend the sick Patients' 1 averring that it was 'absolutely necessary',
Bethlem abolished the position of Nurse as a separate entity at the hoepital 8. Although
St. Luke's almost invariably refused to accept patients discharged 'uncured' from Bethiem,
by the latter quarter of the century Bethlem was proudly accepting the 'uncured' from St.
Luke's (at least, between Midsummer and Lady Day) and publicly declaring that 'no person
is considered as disqualified for admission here, who may have been discharged from any other
lunatic hospital'339.
Conclusion
I have been arguing that there was a good deal more to Bethlem than Whiggish historians'
denouncements of it as 'scene of stagnation and unassailed tradition' have stiggested°. The
H,storical Accovnt, 8n.
See e.g. BCGM, 28 May 1752, 11 July 1759, 7 Feb. 1760, 26 Feb. 1761, 21 Jan. & 1 April 1762, 25 July
1765, 30 July 1767, 27 April 1769, 12 April & 6 Sept. 1770; folk 61, 310, 330, 352, 5, 13, 142, 180, 248-51, 286 &
310; A Report from the Committee Appointed (vpon the 27th Dap of Janvary, 1765) to Enqvire into the State
of the Private Madhovses in this Kingdom. With the Proceeding, of the Novae therevpoa (1763), in Hot.e of
Commons reprint., vol. 25, 3-11, e.p. 9-10; Hunter & Macalpine, George 111 l the MaJ-Bvsiness (London,
Allen Lane, 1969), 314-5.
336 LEP, e.g. No. 3598 & 3649, 10-13 Nov. 1750 & 9-12 March 1751.
Monro obeerve. at one point about a patient, e.g., 'once before....he wa, attended by Dr. BaLtic to little
purpo.e'; Casebook, 4-5.
338 SLHCM, 10 May 1765 & chap. 5, infra.
Bowen, Hi,torical Accovnt, 13.
Hunter & Macalpine, intro to their edn of Bathe's Treatise & Moiuo's Remarks, 9.
318