'Curative' and 'Custodial': Benefits of Patient Treatment at the Asylum for the Insane, Kingston, 1878-1906.

The article presents the findings of a study on a selected group of 240 women admitted to the Asylum for the Insane in Kingston, Ontario, between 1878 and 1884, in order to build on the understanding of the role of asylum care and its benefit to patients. The study examines the asylum's treatment program during the late nineteenth century and its influence on the outcomes of committal. An examination of the moral treatment program illustrates the forms of health care and social assistance provided in the institution. A subsequent discussion of the outcome of asylum treatment and the rates of discharge demonstrates that Kingston's moral treatment program facilitated a curative experience for many women patients; several were confined for short periods to convalesce from emotional breakdowns, puerperal depression, and poor physical health. Yet the therapy program provided at Kingston also benefited the long-term care sector of the asylum's patient population. By accounting for this too-often forgotten group, the paper offers a complex analysis of the asylum's function, questioning the role of moral treatment in the long-term care of the mentally ill.