Bethlehem, Bethlem, or Bedlam as it came to be known, has become synonymous with the mistreatment of the mentally ill. By the nineteenth century, however, attitudes towards these unfortunates began to change. As these documents from 1852 indicate, the Commissioners in Lunacy attempted to oversee the welfare of patients in asylums and operate as the guardians of the reform process. The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, referred to on page 35 of the first section, was the head of the Commission from its founding in 1845 until his death in 1881. Though a far cry from Bedlam's early days when the public were charged admission to view inmates as a form of entertainment, the reports in this volume indicate that abuse still occurred, though hospital workers and the Board of Governors denied these accusations.
