Het Dolhuys

Het Dolhuys is a national museum for psychiatry in Haarlem, Netherlands. The museum was founded in 2005 in the newly renovated former old age home known as Schoterburcht, located just across the Schotersingel from the Staten Bolwerk park. The whole complex is much older than that however, having been a hospital for centuries known as the Leproos-, Pest- en Dolhuys.

The collection is based on the artifacts of seven psychiatric hospitals; GGZ Noord-HollandNoord, Mentrum, De Meren, Buitenamstel, GGZ Dijk en Duin, De Geestgronden, and Rivierduinen. It is an interactive museum. The visitor is encouraged to think about the contrasts between sanity and insanity, between visitors and inmates, and between participants and observers. On display are the various personal effects of famous inmates of psychiatric hospitals, as well as old treatment methods and tools used by the hospitals themselves.

Like many other Dutch cities, Haarlem had a hospice situated outside the city walls for lepers, plague victims, and other sufferers considered by the city council to have infectious diseases. In council archives, it is often referred to as "De Siecken", since that was the name of the street it was on (now the Schotersingel). The Dolhuys was situated in the former town of Schoten (annexed by Haarlem in 1927). What made this one so unusual was the privilege granted to Haarlem in 1413 to test lepers from all over the provinces Holland and Zeeland and grant them a vuilbrief, or document certifying their status as leper. With this paper, the leper was legally allowed to beg. According to tradition, a leper would be cured after begging a certain amount of money. When a vuilbrief expired, the subject could request a new one. This privilege meant a guaranteed form of income for this institution, since it also meant a steady stream of visitors and accompanying traffic.

It wasn't until the 19th century that the regents of the Dolhuys actively worked on curing the inmates. The purpose until then was just to provide a safe place to stay for inmates who were dangerous to themselves or to society at large. Lepers who were not sick lived in "Akkerzieken", or homesteads in Akendam, an area north of Schoten, where they had rights to health services from the Dolhuys.

One of the oldest keystones in the front of the complex shows the year 1564. In the 16th and 17th centuries the Dolhuys regents became quite wealthy, because many lepers coming for their vuilbrief decided to stay there, and doing so meant that all of their possessions reverted to the Dolhuys on their death. With a reduction of lepers, the house was converted to a poorhouse for children in 1653. Though it doubled as a home for poor children, the Dolhuys was sometimes still called "Leproos-huis" and later, "Pest-huis" when an outbreak of plague hit Haarlem in 1664. The painter Jan de Bray lost many members of his family in that outbreak, and they were probably cared for in the Dolhuys, where he won a commission to paint the regents three years later.

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Wikipedia