Bedlam Hospital And The Care Of The Sick And Infirm.

People often use terms today which may sound harmless, without knowing their true origins. Take the words Bedlam and Tomfoolery. Bedlam indicates a state of great confusion. And people who act silly, are often said to be engaging in tomfoolery. Bedlam of course is short for St. Mary of Bethlehem, a notorious old insane asylum in London dating back to the 14th century which later became a hospital for the mentally ill still in operation today.

Tomfoolery is a more obscure term. Tomfoolery is derived from the archaic English word Tom-Fool. Tom o'Bedlam and Poor Tom are names formerly applied to the demented and developmentally disabled, because they often ended up in Bedlam. (Also interestingly insubordinate wives were placed in there. Couldn't they just get a divorce?) Bedlam hospital was the first attempt at humane care for patients, but people there lived under appalling conditions by today's standards. Visitors paid a penny to observe the patients like specimens in a zoo. But you have consider how life would've been for these people otherwise. Mentally ill and developmentally disabled people were often beggars. And beggars had a very low status back then. Queen Elizabeth I famously said she'd rather be a beggar woman than a queen married because people rarely ever helped beggars back then (how'd they eat?).

Care for the mentally ill has greatly improved since since those times and I am inclined to give them credit for at least trying to care for these people more humanely. But we must always remember the past if only to avoid repeating it. And it is perhaps ironic then that when we use terms Bedlam and tomfoolery, we are.