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By Laura Mitchell, Producer and Director

Robert Fergusson may have only lived for 24 years, the last of which was traumatic, but those short years not only inspired Scotland’s best-known poet – – but also a doctor whose work paved the way for better treatment of people with mental health conditions: Dr Andrew Duncan.

Dr Andrew Duncan, painted by Henry Raeburn

Fergusson’s time at Edinburgh Bedlam

Fergusson had been suffering from a mental health condition and had withdrawn from public life. He made a brief recovery, but then sustained a serious head injury after falling down a flight of stairs. He was deemed ‘utterly insensible’ and his elderly mother was unable to look after him.

He was sent to the city’s ‘madhouse’, — the notorious Edinburgh Bedlam. This was little more than a prison where patients were locked up and chained to walls. Fergusson occupied a damp, cold cell with straw on the floor and only basic sanitation.

During his time there, Fergusson was visited by a friend from his student days, Dr Andrew Duncan. Duncan became more and more appalled by the treatment of patients and the shocking conditions.

Edinburgh’s new asylum

After Fergusson’s death in October 1774, Duncan began to fight for a more appropriate institution for the care of people with mental illness. He launched a fundraising appeal in 1792 and in 1806, Parliament granted £2000.

Four acres of land were purchased in Morningside and the architect Robert Reid was commissioned to design a new building, the Edinburgh Lunatic Asylum, which began construction in 1807. It was later renamed East House and opened in 1813, at first only taking patients who could afford to pay.

Although it was demolished in 1896, the site has developed into what is now known as and remains there today. It houses the Andrew Duncan Clinic and the Robert Fergusson Unit, which treats patients with head injuries.

• For more on Fergusson's legacy and his connection to Robert Burns, watch .