Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940

So wrote Ralph M., a patient at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane from 1898 until his death in 1911 . Winston O., another inmate at the Toronto asylum, actually sought to build wings like those that Ralph so longed for. After crafting violins that he played and building from scratch an automobile he was allowed to drive on the hospital grounds, Winston, who spent his last 58 years in the asylum, was reported to be working on the construction of an `aeroplane'.

In Remembrance of Patients Past, historian Geoffrey Reaume chronicles in rich detail the daily life of patients at 999 Queen Street West from 1870 to 1940, examining such aspects as diagnosis and admission, daily routine and relationships, leisure, patients' labour, family and community responses, and discharge and death. Mental patients were at times abused, and they led lives of tedious monotony that could tend to `flatten' personality, yet many of these women and men worked hard at institutional jobs for years and decades on end, created their own entertainment, and formed meaningful relationships with other patients and staff.

Resume writes that `the varied experiences and perspectives of the people who were patients indicate that there is no one easy, clear-cut solution to caring for people with mental health problems. As horrific as 999 was in many ways, the total absence of any institutional support would have been even worse.' He concludes: `the people whose voices and experiences make up this study show later generations that psychiatric patients have a great deal to teach us about what it was like to be confined in a mental institution and to live with the psychological troubles that brought them to999 Queen Street West.'

The Canadian Social History Series is devoted to in-depth studies of major themes in our history, exploring neglected areas in the day-to-day existence of Canadians. The emphasis of this innovative series is on increasing the general appreciation of our past and opening up new areas of study for students and scholars. The editor of the series is Gregory S. Kealey, Professor, Provost and Vice President (Research), University of New Brunswick. A leading historian of the Canadian working class, Dr Kealey was the founding editor of Labour/ Le Travail from 1976 to 1997.

Geoffrey Reaume, Ph.D., who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in his teens and is himself a former psychiatric patient, is currently an associate professor at the School of Health Policy and Management, York University.