Shackled Bodies, Unchained Minds: Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency 1793-1921

<p>Lunatic asylums in the Bombay Presidency were characteristically custodial. In 1793, the government sanctioned the building of the first asylum in the Presidency. During the nineteenth century, they built more asylums, adding to their number. However, by the early twentieth century, these asylums remained mere ‘lock-ups’ for those deemed dangerous to society. Lunacy administration, as one superintendent noted, was the veritable Cinderella in the family of colonial institutions. In terms of the public use of asylums by Indians, in 1905 the total patient population of the asylums in the Bombay Presidency stood only at 1203 patients. This was a meagre number compared to the asylum patient population in Britain. The poor admission numbers baffled both the government and the Indian press. This thesis argues that the colonial lunatic asylum did not assimilate into Indian society and therefore remained a failed colonial-medical enterprise. Colonial agencies attributed the poor quality of asylum treatment practices to ‘native apathy’ in matters of mental health, and the low admission numbers to ‘less-brain energy’ of Indians. Eduardo Duran has argued that colonial institutions, because of their lack of cultural competence, inflicted historical traumas on indigenous people; historical traumas affect people on three levels: physical, psychological, and spiritual. The thesis contends that Indian ‘apathy’ was a mere reaction to the historical traumas caused by the asylum system. The thesis accounts for these historical traumas. The first chapter argues that the lunatic asylum contended with two intrinsic characteristics of Indian society - its integrated spiritual-somatic understanding of insanity and its close family ties. The ‘apathy’ of the Indian population towards the asylum system, then, was a reaction to the wounds caused by the colonial undermining of Indian worldviews, medical knowledge, and socio-cultural practices. In the second chapter, the thesis proceeds to examine the colonial-local encounters within the asylum system. These encounters reveal the character of the lunatic asylum as a colonial middle ground. While the government, judiciary and asylum staff executed various forms of control over patients, they failed to achieve colonial hegemony in the lunatic asylums. The third and fourth chapters examine treatment practices and the asylum soundscape as evidence of its failure as a medical institution. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, asylum treatment methods remained largely primitive - revolving around clothing, feeding and keeping patients occupied. Such treatment methods reflected the custodial character of Bombay’s asylum system. The custodial nature was also evident in the asylum soundscape or aural environment. Asylum staff did not succeed in regulating and regimenting the asylum soundscape unlike other asylums around the world because of monetary and spatial constraints. In the final chapter, the thesis proceeds to examine the local community’s understanding of the asylum system. For local communities, the lunatic asylum was a place of ‘insulation, mystery and darkness’ - a perception that kept them away from its use. Extensive archival research in India and Britain, in institutions such as the Maharashtra State Archives, National Archives of India, and British Library, where primary sources such as government proceedings, case notes, asylum general rules, annual reports along with local newspapers and patient letters were collected and analysed in this investigation. Hospital records and photographs, taken at the mental hospitals at Thana and Ratnagiri, corroborated other primary sources. The thesis examines the lunatic asylums in the Bombay Presidency from its establishment in 1793 to 1921, after which the government changed the designation ‘lunatic asylum’ to ‘mental hospital’. The thesis does not aim to examine colonial motivations in establishing the lunatic asylum since colonial agencies had heterogeneous views on the purpose of the asylum. Rather, it assesses the Indian experience as it encountered a colonial medical institution. In analysing the impact of the asylum system, the thesis seeks to explain the aversion of Indian families to the asylum. This aversion is evident in Indian society even today, and so is the custodial character of mental hospitals in Maharashtra. An awareness of the historical traumas associated with such institutions can help mental health practitioners, policy makers and Indian society invent better ways to help people suffering from mental illness.</p>

Shackled Bodies, Unchained Minds: Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency 1793-1921

<p>Lunatic asylums in the Bombay Presidency were characteristically custodial. In 1793, the government sanctioned the building of the first asylum in the Presidency. During the nineteenth century, they built more asylums, adding to their number. However, by the early twentieth century, these asylums remained mere ‘lock-ups’ for those deemed dangerous to society. Lunacy administration, as one superintendent noted, was the veritable Cinderella in the family of colonial institutions. In terms of the public use of asylums by Indians, in 1905 the total patient population of the asylums in the Bombay Presidency stood only at 1203 patients. This was a meagre number compared to the asylum patient population in Britain. The poor admission numbers baffled both the government and the Indian press. This thesis argues that the colonial lunatic asylum did not assimilate into Indian society and therefore remained a failed colonial-medical enterprise. Colonial agencies attributed the poor quality of asylum treatment practices to ‘native apathy’ in matters of mental health, and the low admission numbers to ‘less-brain energy’ of Indians. Eduardo Duran has argued that colonial institutions, because of their lack of cultural competence, inflicted historical traumas on indigenous people; historical traumas affect people on three levels: physical, psychological, and spiritual. The thesis contends that Indian ‘apathy’ was a mere reaction to the historical traumas caused by the asylum system. The thesis accounts for these historical traumas. The first chapter argues that the lunatic asylum contended with two intrinsic characteristics of Indian society - its integrated spiritual-somatic understanding of insanity and its close family ties. The ‘apathy’ of the Indian population towards the asylum system, then, was a reaction to the wounds caused by the colonial undermining of Indian worldviews, medical knowledge, and socio-cultural practices. In the second chapter, the thesis proceeds to examine the colonial-local encounters within the asylum system. These encounters reveal the character of the lunatic asylum as a colonial middle ground. While the government, judiciary and asylum staff executed various forms of control over patients, they failed to achieve colonial hegemony in the lunatic asylums. The third and fourth chapters examine treatment practices and the asylum soundscape as evidence of its failure as a medical institution. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, asylum treatment methods remained largely primitive - revolving around clothing, feeding and keeping patients occupied. Such treatment methods reflected the custodial character of Bombay’s asylum system. The custodial nature was also evident in the asylum soundscape or aural environment. Asylum staff did not succeed in regulating and regimenting the asylum soundscape unlike other asylums around the world because of monetary and spatial constraints. In the final chapter, the thesis proceeds to examine the local community’s understanding of the asylum system. For local communities, the lunatic asylum was a place of ‘insulation, mystery and darkness’ - a perception that kept them away from its use. Extensive archival research in India and Britain, in institutions such as the Maharashtra State Archives, National Archives of India, and British Library, where primary sources such as government proceedings, case notes, asylum general rules, annual reports along with local newspapers and patient letters were collected and analysed in this investigation. Hospital records and photographs, taken at the mental hospitals at Thana and Ratnagiri, corroborated other primary sources. The thesis examines the lunatic asylums in the Bombay Presidency from its establishment in 1793 to 1921, after which the government changed the designation ‘lunatic asylum’ to ‘mental hospital’. The thesis does not aim to examine colonial motivations in establishing the lunatic asylum since colonial agencies had heterogeneous views on the purpose of the asylum. Rather, it assesses the Indian experience as it encountered a colonial medical institution. In analysing the impact of the asylum system, the thesis seeks to explain the aversion of Indian families to the asylum. This aversion is evident in Indian society even today, and so is the custodial character of mental hospitals in Maharashtra. An awareness of the historical traumas associated with such institutions can help mental health practitioners, policy makers and Indian society invent better ways to help people suffering from mental illness.</p>

Mental Health Services in the Northeastern Province of British India: Tezpur Lunatic Asylum, 1876–947

Colonialism in the nineteenth century brought a new ‘space’ for lunatics in British India. The Northeastern province witnessed the establishment of a lunatic asylum in 1876 at Tezpur in present-day Assam. The article explores the historical development of mental health services by the British in this particular region and constructs a history of colonial control of the natives through employing a strict system under the lunatic asylum service. The methods of confinement of inmates, mainly from poor sections of society, and treatment patterns that focussed more on profits and disciplining of inmates, suggest that the asylum was more custodial rather than curative.

Isolating Madness: Photographs from Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, 1887-1907

<p>Frederic Truby King (1858-1938) is an eminent figure in New Zealand history. His name continues to flourish in contemporary society, due in part to its affiliation with the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society. However, the general populace is still relatively unaware of the time that King spent employed as the medical superintendent of Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, on the remote outskirts of Dunedin. The prevailing image of King during this period is of a single-minded physician, whose career was in a state of acceleration towards the establishment of Plunket. But historians like Barbara Brookes and Catherine Coleborne have rightly started to establish this epoch as significant in its own right. This thesis extends their work by engaging with previously unpublished casebook photographs of patients in King’s care, taken between 1887 and 1907, from the restricted Seacliff Lunatic Asylum archives. Through six case studies, this thesis draws connections between these photographs and the paradigms established by such internationally renowned photographers as Hugh W. Diamond and James Crichton-Browne. It then discusses some distinctive photographs that appear unique to this institutional environment, images that challenge our preconceived notions of psychiatric institutions and their functions. This visual history complicates, and sometimes even challenges, the argument about psychiatric institutions and disciplinary power proposed by Michel Foucault and John Tagg, by demonstrating the diverse forms of photography that can occur within a single institution. This study is part of a growing body of research on the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum archives. In using a largely untapped source of photographic history, this project will contribute to future research on similar topics.</p>

Isolating Madness: Photographs from Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, 1887-1907

<p>Frederic Truby King (1858-1938) is an eminent figure in New Zealand history. His name continues to flourish in contemporary society, due in part to its affiliation with the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society. However, the general populace is still relatively unaware of the time that King spent employed as the medical superintendent of Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, on the remote outskirts of Dunedin. The prevailing image of King during this period is of a single-minded physician, whose career was in a state of acceleration towards the establishment of Plunket. But historians like Barbara Brookes and Catherine Coleborne have rightly started to establish this epoch as significant in its own right. This thesis extends their work by engaging with previously unpublished casebook photographs of patients in King’s care, taken between 1887 and 1907, from the restricted Seacliff Lunatic Asylum archives. Through six case studies, this thesis draws connections between these photographs and the paradigms established by such internationally renowned photographers as Hugh W. Diamond and James Crichton-Browne. It then discusses some distinctive photographs that appear unique to this institutional environment, images that challenge our preconceived notions of psychiatric institutions and their functions. This visual history complicates, and sometimes even challenges, the argument about psychiatric institutions and disciplinary power proposed by Michel Foucault and John Tagg, by demonstrating the diverse forms of photography that can occur within a single institution. This study is part of a growing body of research on the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum archives. In using a largely untapped source of photographic history, this project will contribute to future research on similar topics.</p>

4. Horror and the mind

‘Horror and the mind’ looks at ideas of madness and the mind in horror. The lunatic asylum is one of the classic locations of horror, and our fears of insanity, or of the strangeness of our own minds to ourselves, is one of its recurring themes. The ‘double’ refers to the literalizing of ideas of the divided or split self. There are a number of psychos and slashers who have populated horror culture. Why are we obsessed with the figure of the serial killer?

The “Gospel of Fatness” and Acts of Sitophobia: The Foodscape and Power Relations at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890 to circa 1910

The article explores the foodscape of the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, South Africa, from 1890 to circa 1910. The staff of the asylum were disciples of the “gospel of fatness” in which a patient’s weight gain was regarded as an index of restored physical health and possibly also the onset of convalescence from mental illness. Nevertheless, the practice of this gospel at the asylum did not amount to an equitable distribution of food. Instead, the diet scale that the patients received was based on their race, sex and status as paying or non-paying patients. Although the patients were able to secure more food rations via sanctioned and illicit foodways, it is of significance that some patients sought to resist the regimen of the asylum and its dietary scale by acts of sitophobia – the refusal to eat. The study concludes by investigating the themes presented in the acts of sitophobia committed by women.

The paper technology of confinement: evolving criteria in admission forms (1850–73)

This paper investigates the role of admission forms in the regulation of asylum confinement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Taking the Toronto Lunatic Asylum as a case study it traces the evolution of the forms’ content and structure during the first decades of this institution. Admission forms provide important material for understanding the medico-legal assessment of lunacy in a certain jurisdiction. First, they show how the description of insanity depended on a plurality of actors. Second, doctors were not necessarily required to indicate symptoms of derangement. Third, patients’ relatives played a fundamental role in providing clinical information. From an historiographical perspective, this paper invites scholars to consider the function of standardized documents in shaping the written identity of patients.