John Monro (16 November 1716 – 27 December 1791) was a physician specializing in the treatment of madness atBethlem Hospital in London, better known as Bedlam.
John Monro was the eldest son ofJames Monro, who was the physician of the Bethlem Hospital until his death in 1752, and his wife Elizabeth. James was the first of theMonro family of physicians who formed a dynasty of mad-doctors between 1728 and 1855.[1]
Monro had four sons with his wife, Elizabeth: John, Charles, James, andThomas and a daughter Charlotte.
John Monro graduated fromSt John's College, Oxford in 1737 and received a Radcliffe travelling fellowship that enabled him to study in Europe for 10 years, which included Edinburgh, Leiden, Paris and Rome. He was formally appointed as a joint physician at Bethlem andBridewell in 1751 to aid his ailing father, although he had been a governor since 1748, and as a physician when his father died a year later. He became a fellow of theRoyal College of Physicians in 1753.[2]
Bethlem had lost its institutional monopoly for the treatment of insanity by the creation ofSt Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in 1751, and in 1758, he quickly responded toWilliam Battie, the physician of this hospital, who published aTreatise on Madness in 1758, which appeared to criticise the practices of Bethlem. HisRemarks on Dr Battie's Treatise have been characterised as narrow and reactionary[3] but he has recently been defended in the first biography published about him in recent years.[4]
One criticism of Bedlam at this time was that it allowed paying visitors to observe the lunatics, and despite the banning of this practice at St. Luke's, Monro didn't restrict it until 1770.[2]
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