land as an example--and it was probably the most humane--we have a
chain of testimony. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Bethlehem
Hospital was reported too loathsome for any man to enter; in the
seventeenth century, John Evelyn found it no better; in the eighteenth,
Hogarth's pictures and contemporary reports show it to be essentially
what it had been in those previous centuries.(380)

(380) On Sir Thomas More and the condition of Bedlam, see Tuke, History
of the Insane in the British Isles, pp. 63-73. One of the passages of
Shakespeare is in As You Like It, Act iii, scene 2. As to the survival
of indifference to the sufferings of the insane so long after the belief
which caused it had generally disappeared, see some excellent remarks in
Maudsley's Responsibility in Mental Disease, London, 1885, pp. 10-12.

The older English practice is thus quaintly described by Richard Carew
(in his Survey of Cornwall, London, 1602, 1769): "In our forefathers'
daies, when devotion as much exceeded knowledge, as knowledge now
commeth short of devotion, there were many bowssening places, for curing
of mad men, and amongst the rest, one at Alternunne in this Hundred,
called S. Nunnespoole, which Saints Altar (it may be)... gave name to
the church... The watter running from S. Nunnes well, fell into a square
and close walled plot, which might bee filled at what depth they listed.
Vpon this wall was the franticke person set to stand, his backe towards
the poole, and from thence with a sudden blow in the brest, tumbled
headlong into the pond; where a strong fellowe, provided for the nonce,
tooke him, and tossed him vp and downe, alongst and athwart the water,
vntill the patient, by forgoing strength, had somewhat forgot his fury.
Then there was hee conveyed to the Church, and certain Masses sung over
him; vpon which handling, if his right wits returned, S. Nunne had
the thanks; but if there appeared any small amendment, he was bowsened
againe, and againe, while there remayned in him any hope of life, for
recovery."

The first humane impulse of any considerable importance in this field
seems to have been aroused in America. In the year 1751 certain members
of the Society of Friends founded a small hospital for the insane, on
better principles, in Pennsylvania. To use the language of its founders,
it was intended "as a good work, acceptable to God." Twenty years later
Virginia established a similar asylum, and gradually othe