Browse Items (11 total)

"Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam) moved to London’s Moorfields in the 1670s as a respite home for ‘poor senseless creatures’. [...] Visitors were believed to be of help to patients at Bedlam by introducing ‘jollity and merriment’. In return, a moral…

This was a knife crafted by a mental patient from the 1800s and the object was made precisely and whoever the patient was, they took their time on this artifact. The knife was believed made for an escape or the possibility of killing a nurse.

An engraving of an English asylum in the 1800s. In the engraving, the asylum and the back of the asylum can be seen.

Bekker and Scriver surround an old mount in an attempt to sieve out diseases from devils above them. The diseases that are being sieved out of the devils are Raving, Melancholy, Sleep-walking, Irrationality, Delusion, Convulsions, Enthusiasm, Spleen,…

This is a 36-page report written by the head physician at an insane asylum in Belfast. The report includes a lists of governors and officers as well as the dietary, statistical, and financial data of the hospital.

This is a portrait of James Wilkinson also known as "Daft Jamie." Wilkinson was a victim of Burke and Hare. He was "burked" in Hare's boarding house, and then Burke and Hare sold Wilkinson's body to Dr. Knox for his dissections.

Watercolor and graphite painting depicting a man in a mental institution. His family (wife and children) are visiting him and he looks perturbed.

The image shows three examples of phrenologic traits associated with insanity. On the left is a mentally defective person, and in the middle is a mad woman. The final sketching is of French murderer P.F. Lacenaire.