Portal:Featured Article Of The Week
Featured Article Of The Week
Bethlem Royal Hospital
Bethlem Royal Hospital is an active hospital for the treatment of mental illness located in London, United Kingdom; and is currently owned and operated by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Although no longer based at the original location of its 1247 founding, it is recognized as Europe's first and oldest psychiatric institution. Bethlem has been accepting patients suffering from Insanity since the 14th century. The current hospital has been closely associated with King's College-London, and remains in partnership with the King's College-London Institute of Psychiatry. The hospital itself remains a major center for psychiatric, neurological and psychological research. The current hospital includes a range of specialist psychiatric services, such as the National Psychosis Unit for the United Kingdom. Other services on the hospital grounds include: the Bethlem Adolescent, which provides care and treatment for young people aged 12–18 from across the country. Bethlem also has an occupational therapy department, which has its own art gallery displaying work of current patients, and a number of noted artists have been past patients at the hospital over the years. Several examples of their work can be found in the Bethlem museum.
The word bedlam, meaning 'an uproar or confusion', is derived from the hospital's prior name. From the fourteenth century, Bethlem had been referred to colloquially as "Bedleheem", "Bedleem" or "Bedlam". Initially Bedlam functioned merely as an informal, alternative moniker for the institution but, from approximately the Jacobean era, it emerged as Bethlem's doppelgänger, detaching itself increasingly from the hospital, and entering everyday speech to signify a state of madness, chaos, and the irrational nature of the world. Click here for more...
