Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Bethlem Royal Hospital

  • William Halse Rivers Rivers

    JMS PearceHull, England William Rivers MD FRCP FRS (1864-1922) William Rivers (Fig 1) was a most unusual man, a polymath with careers in neuroscience, ethnology, and psychology. But above all—notwithstanding or perhaps because of personal nervous constraints—he was a man of originality and great humanity. Son of a churchman, he was born in Luton, near…

  • John Francis Hall-Edwards—a radiology pioneer

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK John Francis Hall-Edwards was born on 19 December 1858 in the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edwards School in Birmingham followed by Queen’s College, Birmingham where he studied medicine and was an apprentice to Professor Richard Norris.1,2 He qualified in medicine in 1885. Norris…

  • Richard Dadd: art and madness

    JMS PearceHull, England Is there anything so extravagant as the imaginations of men’s brains? Where is the head that has no chimeras in it? . . . Our knowledge, therefore is real only so far as there is conformity between our ideas and reality of things. . . – (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane…

  • Mental illness in art

    JMS PearceHull, England It is often said that creative art is linked to eccentricity, sometimes bordering on madness. Examples abound of great musicians, writers, and artists who at some time in their lives were deranged and often committed to institutions for mental illness. Some ended their lives in suicide. To what extent is art inspired…

  • Longitudinal lunacy: Science and madness in the eighteenth century

    Richard de GrijsSydney, AustraliaDaniel VuillerminBeijing, China “A couple of young Non conformist preachers from Worksop in the North of Derbyshire came thither to have my approbation of some Method they had to propose for finding the Longitude at sea, one I shall tell you because it will make you laugh abundantly.”1 John Flamsteed, Britain’s first…