The Interior of Bedlam, from A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth (1763)

In the 18th century, watching and taunting "lunatics" in an asylum was a popular form of entertainment.

The cost of admission at the Hospital of St. Mary in London, the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world (later renamed Bethlem Hospital), was one penny. The asylum was so chaotic that it became the basis of the word "bedlam."