Journal Article

Authority and the Treatment of the Insane at Castle Hill Asylum, 1811–25

James Dunk

2017

Overview

The creation and deployment of authority was a dominant therapeutic instrument in the treatment of insanity, both before and after the advent of moral therapy. This article explores the challenges in establishing authority at Castle Hill Lunatic Asylum, the first institution for treating insanity in colonial Australia. Conflict between superintendent George Suttor and doctors William Bland and Thomas Parmeter is read in the light of the therapeutic importance of adequate and undivided authority. The court of inquiry which heard details of the dispute between Suttor and Parmeter in 1818–19 shows a staff uncertain of who to obey and patients bearing the brunt of the officers' efforts to establish control. I argue that the withholding, division and collapse of authority at Castle Hill were produced by the distinctive qualities and limitations of its context: a penal colony.

• Publisher: Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine
• Subject: Colonies / Criminals / Fear / Governors / Health care administration / Medical treatment / Mental illness / Penal colonies / Surgeons / Violence