John Monro (physician)

John Monro (16 November 1716 – 27 December 1791) was a physician specializing in the treatment of madness at Bethlem Hospital in London, better known as Bedlam.

[1] Monro had four sons with his wife, Elizabeth: John, Charles, James, and Thomas and a daughter Charlotte.

John Monro graduated from St 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.

[2] Bethlem had lost its institutional monopoly for the treatment of insanity by the creation of St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in 1751, and in 1758, he quickly responded to William Battie, the physician of this hospital, who published a Treatise on Madness in 1758, which appeared to criticise the practices of Bethlem.

[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.