Letter from America

As previously reported, our Archivist was recently awarded travel grants for a brief research visit to the United States of America, and he is Stateside right now. It is too early for him to give details of the research he is conducting at the moment, but he has written the following missive for the blog:

‘Having first visited Philadelphia some sixteen years ago, I am delighted to have had the opportunity to return. Having seen the tourist sights last time – the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall – on this occasion I am spending the majority of my time in the extremely well-appointed Reading Room of the Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. So far my only excursion out has been to the nearby Philadelphia Museum of Art to catch the closing days of an exhibition entitled An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing “The Gross Clinic” Anew.

‘Thomas Eakins’ 1875 The Gross Clinic is an iconic painting not only for the history of medicine but also for the city of Philadelphia. It depicts an operation performed by Dr Gross, head of surgery at the city’s medical college, surrounded by students and spectators. One critic (Paula Marantz Cohen in the Times Literary Supplement of 10 December 2010) has compared it in its relation to American art and nineteenth-century medicine to Joseph Wright’s 1768 An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (which now hangs in the National Gallery) in its relation to British art and the onset of the Industrial Revolution. In 2006 a multi-million dollar offer to purchase The Gross Clinic from the medical college spurred a successful fundraising campaign to keep it in Philadelphia. A video installation on the history and recent restoration of the painting is also on display, as well as other artworks by Thomas Eakins.’

The exhibition closes on 9 January 2011; click here for further details.

Photo courtesy of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Christmas at Bethlem

In a recent post, we highlighted a fact about admission to Bethlem Hospital in the eighteenth century which is not as well known as perhaps it should be: that admission was commonly for a period of no longer than twelve months. What was true of the Georgian and Regency Hospital in Moorfields also held good for the Victorian and Edwardian Hospital at Southwark. There were, however, always a few exceptions that proved the rule – people who stayed longer than twelve months – especially after the establishment of the Hospital’s incurable ward.

Each Christmas season, the Hospital had to tackle the question of how to sustain its patients in positive (perhaps even festive) mood. This question could be particularly acute in the case of those who faced more than one successive Christmas as inpatients. Its first strategy appears to have been to send convalescing patients home on temporary leave.

Emma Lane was admitted in May 1893 after having spent twenty years of savings in a matter of weeks on unneccesary food, baby clothes and theatre bookings. Her husband kept in close contact with the Hospital throughout her extended stay, at one stage writing ‘I am anxious to see her resume her old place, but fear she is not yet well enough’. Emma was granted temporary leave to spend time with her family a number of times, including at Christmas 1893 and 1894, but matters did not run smoothly, and on each occasion she was returned to the Hospital. Christmas 1893 seems to have been particularly stressful, the family’s report being that Emma had been ‘giving trouble’, Emma’s version of events being that she had ‘just bought a few things’. Emma was discharged uncured in January 1895; the story of her hospital stay may be read in Presumed Curable: An illustrated casebook of Victorian psychiatric patients in Bethlem Hospital by Colin Gale and Robert Howard (Wrightson Biomedical, 2003).

Of course, not everyone could be sent home for Christmas, and the Hospital’s second strategy to maintain seasonal morale seems to have been to bring Christmas to the majority of patients and staff that remained in residence throughout. The photograph below offers remarkable evidence of one attempt to do so. It shows a statue that stood in one of the Hospital’s galleries (shared ward space) dressed as St Nicholas for the Christmas season of 1907. To our contemporary gaze, the visual effect is unusual, even a little unsettling. Yet the intention must have been to lift the spirits, and we may hope that the display succeeded in doing so at the time. In any event, all the staff of the Archives & Museum wish the readers of this blog a very happy Christmas and safe and prosperous New Year.

Nineteenth Century Society: Women, Madness & Marriage 4

Marriage breakdown could cause massive disruption in the lives of married women in the Victorian era. Even in cases where the termination of the marriage had been desired, such as that of Kate Marian Merriman, admitted as a patient of Bethlem Hospital in July 1891, the change in position might be hard to deal with. Suddenly returned to the care of her family after separation from her husband six years ago, 36 year old Merriman “had considerable trouble with her relations over family matters,” most of which seem to relate to her desire for independence for, like Grace Sapsford a decade later, she felt that “I surely have a perfect right at my age to choose my future.”

Kate Merriman told the medical officers a lengthy story of her admission, refuting or explaining most of the issues stated as delusions in her medical certificates. “The night before admission she stayed at a hotel at Henley by herself with no luggage but a travelling bag. She was much upset by the way she was treated there, she says with great want of respect. The people there mistook a razor in her bag for a suicidal instrument, whereas she always carried it to cut her corns. She says nothing in her conduct accounted for the rude way in which she was treated. This bother caused her so much annoyance that she refused her food.”

It is unclear whether the medical officers took the word of Kate’s brother (who connected her illness with her separation from her husband six years before) or herself – for they certainly commented on the lack of clear symptoms of insanity. Moreover, the conversational tone of the letter written by Mrs Merriman to Dr Hyslop after her discharge indicates that she felt he understood her: “as you know, I have not had anything to do with my relatives for some time.” However, as Kate was legally regarded as a dependent of her parents, the medical officers were in a difficult position: they would have to send her back to her parents’ home. This, she wrote, caused her to feel “isolated” in the Hospital, and: “While forgiving as one hopes to be forgiven, one cannot forget the past six & a half years of their life. … I have lived the quietest of lives in rooms with my children before, if necessary I can do it again, & be far happier there, than I could ever be with my own family.”

Ultimately, Kate Merriman managed to achieve her aims. Discharged cured in November 1891, her certificate was signed by a doctor in Penzance – where she had long claimed she wished to move with her children, well away from the family she disliked, in part due to their overbearing views on her marriage. This doctor, Humphry Davy, in fact disagreed with the diagnoses which had led to her certification in the first place. He declared that he had seen Mrs Merriman many times in the last four years and had never witnessed any symptom of insanity: as he saw it, her ideas of persecution at the hands of her family were entirely rational.

Nineteenth Century Society: Women, Madness & Marriage 3

The medical records of an appreciable number of the young women admitted as patients of Bethlem in the late nineteenth century provide evidence of a close interplay of social intimacy, expectation and vulnerability. Nancy Jessie Joy was admitted twice in 1888. Aged 22, Nancy was a Still Room Maid, regarded as suffering from melancholia. She was quickly discharged cured following her first admission, but later claimed to have been simply pretending to be well. After this discharge, while still depressed, she “had the idea that if she became “ruined” a change would come over her mind.” She wandered from home and was “accosted by a gentleman.” Having “allowed him to have intercourse with her,” she “now feels she is going to hell and wants to hurry this on.” In Nancy’s case, conventional gender roles were used to attempt to avoid the stigma that might be associated with her behaviour: the “seduced woman,” Nancy’s actions are interpreted as entirely passive (she “wanders,” and does not instigate relations but simply “allows” it), while the “accosting” gentleman is the active party. Her “seduction” was seen as the reason for Nancy’s re-admission in October 1888 – popular literature in particular frequently associated female insanity and suicidal behaviour with seduction: again, however, she was quickly discharged as recovered, without further comment on her actions.

Yet the role of the Victorian psychiatrist in such cases was complicated – at once physician, moral guardian and spiritual counsellor, indicated by the letter Nancy wrote to Dr Smith three years after her discharge. Having apparently remained well, she begged Dr Smith for advice, for “I feel I cannot ask my mother.” Two things, Nancy felt, might prevent her marrying, as she described her situation to Dr Smith as follows:

“I am engaged to a young man who wishes to marry me & does not mind my having been insane. I could not frame my lips to utter, or I would rather have come & ask you. [sic] Sir, in my sane mind not an impure thought enters my mind. … Am I really ruined or not? If I am I will never marry, no man shall reproach and if you are able to say I am not ruined then one question more, was my insanity of a nature that it would not be right for me to marry?”

There is no indication of Dr Smith’s response to this letter – or whether he even replied at all. However, Nancy was still single when she was admitted to Bethlem in 1899, aged 32, her relapse caused by “mental worry,” presumably due to her “self accusation.” This time, she was discharged uncured.

Our Corner of London

Those whose plans to visit the Archives & Museum (to honour their group booking or other appointment) were frustrated by the weather last week may like to know that a thaw is currently in progress, and that we are maintaining our usual opening hours of 9.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday. The Affordable Art Fair continues on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 11am to 6pm at the Bethlem Gallery – a great place to find a unique Christmas gift. Those who still have Christmas cards to buy and are in striking distance of the Archives & Museum may like to know that we are selling overstocks of our ‘Bethlem Chapel in the snow’ and ‘Christmas Sun’ cards at an extremely reasonable price. (We’re sorry, but it’s too late for us to accept email or telephone orders for these)

A word of warning, however: at the time of writing, side roads and pavements remain icy and extremely hazardous for drivers and pedestrians alike in our corner of London. Do take care, and call ahead if in any doubt.

Bethlem Chapel cosseted in snow