In nineteenth-century Upper Canada (Ontario), professional work was a primary means by which men could improve their social status and class position. As increasing numbers of men sought entry into these learned occupations, current practitioners sought new ways of securing prominent positions in their chosen professions and asserting themselves as having expertise. This dissertation studies the activities and experiences of the five physicians who, as the first medical superintendents (head physicians) at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Toronto from 1840 to 1865, sought such enhanced professional status. Opened in January 1841 as a public welfare institution, the Toronto asylum was housed initially in a former jail; in 1850 it was relocated to a permanent building on Queen Street West. During the asylum’s first twenty-five years of operation physicians Drs. William Rees, Walter Telfer, George Hamilton Park, John Scott, and Joseph Workman successively held the position of medical superintendent at the institution. Given the often insecure status of physicians working in private practice, these doctors hoped that government employment at the asylum would bring greater stability and prestige by establishing them as experts in the treatment of insanity. Yet professional growth in Upper Canada during the Union period (1840-1867) occurred within the context of the colony’s rapidly changing socio-political culture and processes of state development, factors that contributed to the ability of these doctors to “professionalize” as medical superintendents. Rees, Telfer, Park, and Scott would never realize enhanced status largely due to the constraints of Upper Canada’s Georgian social culture in the 1840s and early 1850s. During the 1850s, however, demographic, political, and religious changes in the colony brought about a cultural transition, introducing social values that were more characteristically Victorian. For Joseph Workman, whose beliefs more reflected the new Victorian culture, this cultural shift initially involved him in professional conflicts brought about by the social tensions occurring as part of the transition. Nevertheless, by the 1860s, changes in government led to the development of new legislation and departmentalization of welfare and the public service that led him to gain recognition as a medical expert in a unique field.

Having embarked on a vast journey of asylum construction from the 1860s, Scottish mental health care faced uncertainty as to the appropriate role of the asylum by the 1880s. Whereas the mid century was dominated by official efforts to lessen the asylum's custodial image, late Victorian asylum culture encompassed both traditional and new themes in the treatment and care of patients. These themes included hospitalisation, traditional moral approaches, and wider social influences such as the poor law, philanthropy, endemic disease and Victorian ethics. In an age of medical advance, Scottish asylum doctors and administrators introduced hospitalisation in a bid to enhance the status of asylum culture. The hospitalisation of the asylum was attempted through architectural change, transitions in mental nursing and the pursuit of laboratory research. Yet as a movement, hospitalisation was largely ornamental. Although hospitalisation paved the way for impressive new buildings, there was little additional funding to improve asylum infrastructure by raising nursing standards or to conduct laboratory research work. While the Commissioners in Lunacy proclaimed `hospitalisation' to be a distinctive part of the Scottish approach of mental health care, the policy's origins lay not with the policy makers but with individual medical superintendents. Although hospitalisation became an official approach by the General Board of Lunacy, like any other theme in asylum culture, the extent of hospitalisation's implementation relied on the support of individual doctors and local circumstance. Despite this attempt to emulate modern medicine, moral management rather than hospitalisation methods continued as the fundamental approach of treatment and control in most institutions. The main components of moral management were work and a system of rewards (implemented through liberties and accommodation privileges). The process of mental recovery continued to be linked to industriousness and behaviour. The thesis acknowledges the impact of local forces and wider society upon attitudes towards mental health care, such as the economically driven district lunacy boards and to a lessening extent the parochial boards and philanthropy. In viewing the asylum within the wider context of Scottish society, the asylum shared some characteristics with other Victorian institutions. Finally, although the patient's autonomy within the system should not be overplayed, the asylum doctor was also affected by the patients' co-operation with treatment and the involvement of family and friends in admission.

In nineteenth-century Upper Canada (Ontario), professional work was a primary means by which men could improve their social status and class position. As increasing numbers of men sought entry into these learned occupations, current practitioners sought new ways of securing prominent positions in their chosen professions and asserting themselves as having expertise. This dissertation studies the activities and experiences of the five physicians who, as the first medical superintendents (head physicians) at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Toronto from 1840 to 1865, sought such enhanced professional status. Opened in January 1841 as a public welfare institution, the Toronto asylum was housed initially in a former jail; in 1850 it was relocated to a permanent building on Queen Street West. During the asylum’s first twenty-five years of operation physicians Drs. William Rees, Walter Telfer, George Hamilton Park, John Scott, and Joseph Workman successively held the position of medical superintendent at the institution. Given the often insecure status of physicians working in private practice, these doctors hoped that government employment at the asylum would bring greater stability and prestige by establishing them as experts in the treatment of insanity. Yet professional growth in Upper Canada during the Union period (1840-1867) occurred within the context of the colony’s rapidly changing socio-political culture and processes of state development, factors that contributed to the ability of these doctors to “professionalize” as medical superintendents. Rees, Telfer, Park, and Scott would never realize enhanced status largely due to the constraints of Upper Canada’s Georgian social culture in the 1840s and early 1850s. During the 1850s, however, demographic, political, and religious changes in the colony brought about a cultural transition, introducing social values that were more characteristically Victorian. For Joseph Workman, whose beliefs more reflected the new Victorian culture, this cultural shift initially involved him in professional conflicts brought about by the social tensions occurring as part of the transition. Nevertheless, by the 1860s, changes in government led to the development of new legislation and departmentalization of welfare and the public service that led him to gain recognition as a medical expert in a unique field.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / South Africa's health transformation blueprint is designed to replace apartheid's inequities and instill instead a new utilitarian approach by the health care sector. This study gives attention to the medical gaze and the body in hospitalisation. At macropolitical level the study focuses on the ways in which the new health policy impacted on power relations and multi-levelled subject positions of medical and nursing staff, as well as on patients in a hierarchy of spaces such as in the wards, in the institution and at a national level, in terms of policy implementation and the reconstruction of the health care services. It shows that policy and institutional discourses and arrangements were embedded in a regime of visuality which discursively homogenised people from different cultural realities. Yet, at the same time biases related to constructions of bodies in relation to class, age, gender and 'value' continued to exist. At the level of hospital protocols and structure the thesis examines the social, political and conceptual frameworks that conveyed, allowed or disallowed particular meaning to the institution. It describes the formal, dominant discourses and processes in the wards and show how these impacted on everyday interaction and relations of power, autonomy, authority, conflict and resistance. The study shows that for patients there often was a disjuncture between policy and practice, as biomedical practitioners and policy makers struggled to define the scope and implementation of health care services in response to pressures for change and concomitant fluctuation. By problematising the notion of the medical gaze and by giving attention to discourses and practices, which were not legitimated by it, the study draws attention to realities that were deemed largely irrelevant by western medical epistemology, such as subjective experiences and knowledge, which, though lacking the same legitimation as the gaze, did not disappear but only become less visible. In this way the study widens the social context in which medical practice can be perceived and understood within a transforming South African health care system.

Pellagra, a nutritional disease with no known diagnostic skeletal indicators, affected patients in the Mississippi State Insane Asylum (MSA) between 1909 and 1936. The current study employed a sample of the MSA’s death-by-discharge records (N=3445) and a skeletal sample (N=19) from the MSA cemetery to test whether co-occurring alveolar bone loss and reduced bone remodeling in the skeletons can be associated with pellagra mortality in the records. Results of the study were inconclusive as to whether the co-occurring markers are associated with pellagra, but suggest that poor dietary conditions within the MSA, conditions prior to institutionalization, and age, sex, and duration in the asylum affected patients’ pellagra mortality outcomes. Future studies should employ larger skeletal samples to better understand pellagra’s effect on the skeleton. This study and the results of future studies may aid in relief efforts for refugee populations, who are at a heightened risk of developing pellagra.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of History, 1999. / Author's name on cover: C. Day. Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 409-418).

In the nineteenth century, the perceived ability of alienists (the early term for mental health specialists) to cure insanity eventually led to lavishly-constructed insane asylums supported by taxpayers. Simultaneously, the hope of a cure and a changing attitude toward insanity helped destigmatize mental illness and made institutionalization of the insane more acceptable. This regional study investigates insane asylums within Appalachia between 1850 and 1900. Primary sources include period articles from professional publications, census data, asylum records, period newspaper articles, and patient records. The study provides background on the medical environment of nineteenth-century Appalachia and investigates the creation and function of five Appalachian asylums. The institutions under examination appear to be as modern and enlightened as those in any other region. Contrary to most published theory, women were not committed to Appalachian asylums more often than men, nor does patient abuse appear to be prevalent.

Criminal profiling is the art of using evidence and crime scenes to deduce who the criminal is and where the criminals might be going next. In addition, criminal profiling is also used to link cases together with like victims. While its usage in law enforcement is relatively new, forms of the art have been around for decades. This thesis researches the history, ideology, and evolution of criminal profiling from the early 1870s to its current state. Cesare Lombroso and his research founded criminal profiling by examining how criminals and their minds vary from law-abiding citizens. Following Lombroso, various forms of research were conducted to further criminal profiling into the much more tangible craft that it is today. Various researchers looked into differing aspects of criminal profiling and produced research that has revolutionized the process. In its earliest stages, biological factors were the primary factors considered to explain why criminals behave differently. However, over time, sociological, environmental, and even psychological factors have been shown to play a part in this volatile recipe. While the process of criminal profiling is not perfect, the advancements in our understanding of the human psyche, along with the evolution of technology, have caused criminal profiling to become much more of a refined art today than in years past. Further, there is reason to believe that the future of profiling will continue to evolve and become even more helpful as a tool for law enforcement. Law enforcement has begun to assemble big data, and informaticians have started to link social media posts, criminal confinements, and online purchases to criminally deviant and violent behavior.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Northern Indiana Hospital for the Insane (also known as Longcliff Hospital or Logansport State Hospital) struggled with a number of challenges common to state institutions, including a lack of funding, staff shortages, and stretched capacity. These problems worsened during World War I and the years immediately following, hindering the hospital’s ability to care for its patients. In response to these challenges, the hospital administration was forced to adapt in order to conserve resources. Using state and hospital records, this thesis examines the changes experienced by the hospital between 1910 and 1920 and demonstrates how external events such as a war had a greater impact on the care of vulnerable residents than did the internal dynamics of the facility or the motivations of its leadership.