
Bedlam: When Mental Illness Had No Mercy 😵💫🏥
About this episode
🏛️🕯️ Long before modern psychology, therapy, or compassion, there was Bedlam — Europe’s most infamous asylum and a symbol of how little the world understood the human mind. Founded in medieval London, it became a place of fear, confinement, and spectacle, where illness was confused with sin, and suffering was often treated as entertainment.
Tonight, close your eyes and step into the echoing halls of history’s first asylum — a quiet reminder of how far mental health care has come, and how painful the journey once was.
👉 Boring History For Sleep | Dark institutions, human stories, and the slow awakening of compassion. 💤
Get every episode summarized
Each time Boring History for Sleep publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Hosts & guests
No transcript yet
This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.
More episodes
More from Boring History for Sleep

Why You Wouldn’t Survive a Single Day in the Past 🏚️⚔️ | 2 Hours of Brutal Ever...
Boring History for Sleep

The Greatest Stories of the Ancient World 🏛️⚔️ | Kings, Empires, Betrayal & For...
Boring History for Sleep

Coal, Steam, and the Industrial Revolution ⚙️🔥 | Boring History for Sleep
Boring History for Sleep

Norse Mythology — The Gods, Monsters, and Doom of the Vikings ⚔️🐺 | Boring Hist...
Boring History for Sleep