Nurses and attendants in South Australian lunatic asylums, 1858–1884

Abstract

This paper focuses on the pattern of care in two Adelaide lunatic asylums between 1858 and 1884. Prior to 1867, Robert Moore, the Colonial Surgeon, introduced a curative orientation to care. But with the appointment of Alexander Paterson as Colonial Surgeon in 1867, a custodial model developed which was consistent with Paterson's ideas on the nature of mental illness.

This paper suggests that the curative model was not in the interests of attendants and nurses: (1) curative practices were more time-consuming, (2) with the increasing number of criminal and dangerous patients being admitted, the keepers became more and more intimidated, and so resorted to custodial measures. In taking advantage of shifts in medical thinking, the asylum keepers, accordingly, had an influential role in effecting the change from curative to custodial care.