Pathways of Patients at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890 to 1907

Rory Du Plessis

Sujets

• Economie
• développement
• Politics
• Relations internationales
• Développement
• Géopolitique

Informations

• Publié par: PULP (Pretoria University Law Press)
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781920538880
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 22 Mo

Extrait

Pathways of patientsexplores the casebooks of the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum during the superintendence of Dr Thomas Duncan Greenlees, from 1890 to 1907. The hallmark ofPathways of patientsis an examination of the asylum’s casebooks to bring into view the humanity of the patients, their distinct personal experiences, and their individuality. The book is underpinned by an allied goal to retrieve the casebook narratives of the patients’ life stories, their acts of agency, and their pathways to and from the asylum, with a view to understanding and portraying the context of patient experiences at the time.

Rory du Plessis is a Senior Lecturer in the School of the Arts, University of Pretoria.

ISBN: 978-1-920538-88-0

Pretoria University Law Press PULP www.pulp.up.ac.za

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d u Plessis

PULP

Pathways of Patients at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890 to 1907

Rory du Plessis

Pathways of Patients at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890 to 1907

Rory du Plessis

2020

Pathways of Patients at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890 to 1907

Published by: Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) The Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) is a publisher at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa. PULP endeavours to publish and make available innovative, high- quality scholarly texts on law in Africa. PULP also publishes a series of collections of legal documents related to public law in Africa, as well as text books from African countries other than South Africa. This book was peer reviewed prior to publication.

For more information on PULP, see www.pulp.up.ac.za

Printed and bound by: Pinetown Printers, South Africa

To order, contact: PULP Faculty of Law University of Pretoria South Africa 0002 Tel: [phone] [e-mail] www.pulp.up.ac.za

Cover design: Marguerite Hartzenberg

Cover image credits: ‘The corridor for black males’. Reproduced by permission of the Western Cape Archives and Record Service (AG 401).

HGM Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum Casebook Volume 22 at 66. Reproduced by permission of the Western Cape Archives and Record Service.

ISBN:978-1-920538-88-0

© The authors and editors, collectively, 2020

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List of Figures and Maps List of Tables List of Appendices List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments

C ontents

I ntroduCtIon 1 The context of the study 2 Methodology 2.1 A blueprint for researching casebooks 2.2 The patients of the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum 3 Outline of this book

C ommIttal and pathways Into the asylum 1 Introduction 2 Pathways to the asylum 2.1 General hospitals 2.2 The Chronic Sick Hospital 2.3 Gaol 3 Arrival at the asylum 4 Context and circumstances of asylum committal 4.1 Statistical tables and scholarly studies 4.2 Narrative patterns 5 Conclusion

d aIly lIfe and pathways out of the asylum 1 Introduction Part I 2 Escape 3 Death 4 Transfers 4.1 Transfers to Robben Island 4.2 Transfers to the Port Alfred Asylum and the Fort Beaufort Asylum 4.3 Transfers to Valkenberg Asylum 5 Repatriation 6 Parole 7 Probation 8 The permeable asylum, family visits, and negotiations

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1 9 15 25 28 30

34 34 35 37 39 40 45 51 51 60 71

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87 93 98 99

100 104 106 111 115 117

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Part II 9 10 11 12

The Chronic Sick Hospital Recovery routes for black subjects Recovery in white women Conclusion

p athwaysbaCkIntotheasylum 1 Introduction 2 Readmission narratives for black patients 3 Readmission narratives for white female patients 4 Readmission narratives for white male patients 5 Conclusion

C onClusIon

b IblIography

a ppendICes

I ndex

122 127 137 141

148 148 150 173 199 227

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Appendix II:

Map 1.2:

Table 1.1: Patient admissions to the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum from 1890 to 1906 Table 2.1: Percentages of the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum patients admitted under the various sections of the 1897 Lunacy Act from 1898 to 1906 Table 2.2: Dodds’s tabulation in the ‘Report of the Inspector of Asylums’ that detailed the number of insane individuals admitted to gaol during the course of 1903 and those that were still in gaol by 31 December 1903 Table 2.3: The causes of insanity at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890 to 1906

Map 1.1:

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l Istof t ables

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Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2 Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4 Figure 3.5 Figure 3.6 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2

Example of the casebook format Revised casebook format for white patients ‘Passage in the Fort England Asylum’ ‘The male stoep for whites’ ‘The male stoep for blacks’ ‘The billiard room’ ‘Inmates of the Fort England Asylum … on a picnic’ ‘Ladies’ sitting-room’ Phumla Zondo Ashley Cooper

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Map of the Cape Colony showing some of the towns mentioned inPathways of patients Map of the eastern part of Cape Colony showing some of the towns mentioned inPathways of patients

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The towns, cities, and divisions of the patients admitted to the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum The occupations of white women admitted to the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum from 1890 to 1906

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l Istof f Iguresand m aps

20 21 76 78 79 81 83 85 234 235

Appendix I:

l Istof a ppendICes

CSH FBA GLA PAA UCS

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l Istof a bbrevIatIons

Chronic Sick Hospital Fort Beaufort Asylum Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum Port Alfred Asylum Under Colonial Secretary

a Cknowledgments

Pathways of patientsdeveloped from a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Werdie van Staden at the Centre for Ethics & Philosophy of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria. I am grateful to Werdie van Staden for providing me with longstanding guidance, inspiration, and for broadening my philosophical horizons. I am indebted to Erika le Roux from the Western Cape Archives and Record Service for the help and guidance she offered me. Erika graciously guided me in locating archived documents and granted me permission to photograph the casebooks of the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum. A predoctoral fellowship at the Max- Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany, provided a solid foundation for embarking upon this book. My colleagues in the School of the Arts at the University of Pretoria encouraged and assisted me in countless ways: Amanda du Preez, Alexander Johnson, Lize Kriel, Jenni Lauwrens, Marinda Maree, and Jeanne van Eeden. Each one of them played a crucial role in the development of this book. Heartfelt appreciation is offered to Rob Ellis, School of Music Humanities & Media, University of Huddersfield, UK, who invited me to present my research at several conferences that he co-convened. The feedback I received from the conference delegates contributed to shaping the thoughts and ideas presented in this book.

I am thankful to Lizette Hermann, Manager of Pretoria University Law Press (PULP), for taking a keen and supportive interest in the book. The book would not have been possible without the substantial and steadfast shepherding provided by Vasu Reddy, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria. I wish to thank the reviewers ofPathways of patients for their thought-provoking insights and helpful suggestions.

To my extended family, thank you for providing me with motivation during the long gestation of this book. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Ronaldo who provided me with generous support and produced the maps that appear in the book. To my mother and father, to whompatientsPathways of is dedicated to, I thank you for your unconditional love, devotion and unswerving encouragement.

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I ntroduCtIon 1 1 In late April 1901 Mmapaseka Rakgalakane was admitted to the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum (GLA), located in the eastern part of the 2 Cape Colony. During the admittal interview conducted by the asylum’s alienists – the nineteenth century term for a psychiatrist – she informed them that her ‘head was bad’ but now is better. Mmapaseka was acutely aware of her surroundings and identified the fact that the asylum ‘is a hospital for mad people’. While institutionalised, Mmapaseka was considered to be rational and again testified to the alienists that ‘her head was bad before she came here but feels quite well now’. Less than five months after her admittal to the asylum, she was discharged recovered.

3 Phumla Xaba was admitted to the asylum in April 1902. A month later she was discharged recovered. The decision to discharge her was based on a cross-examination conducted by the alienists in which she was found to be rational in her conversation and confessed to being ‘insane 4 before she came’ to the asylum. Silindile Dlomo was institutionalised at the asylum from 25 June to 24 July 1903. Silindile’s rapid discharge from the asylum is attributed to the alienists concluding that she conversed in a rational manner, and in one of her conversations with them, she testified that her head felt ‘very bad’ at times but now was better.

This brief account of the institutionalisation of three black subjects at a colonial asylum in Africa has sought to focus on their experiences and encounters with the alienists during cross-examination, interviews 5 and while partaking in conversations. For Mattia Fumanti such accounts of a patient’s experiences of institutionalisation – as well as others

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HGM Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum casebooks Vol 18 at 215. I retain the anonymity of the asylum’s patients by using pseudonyms.Pathways of patientsmakes extensive use of quotes and information obtained from the casebooks. Thus, to avoid repetitive and identical citations in my discussion, I cite only the first instance in which a casebook reference is used. HGM (n 1) Vol 18 253. HGM (n 1) Vol 20 30. M Fumanti ‘“A German whore and no money at that”: Insanity and the moral and political economies of German South West Africa’ (2019)Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.

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that illustrate expressions of a patient’s agency and their interpersonal relations with asylum staff, kin and friends – are largely missing from the ‘histories of the diagnosis, treatment and institutionalisation of the mentally ill in Africa’. Instead, the focus of the scholarship pertains to investigating the links ‘between western biomedicine, colonial psychiatry, 6 7 racism, and oppression’. More broadly, Catharine Coleborne has identified that an ‘inherent problem’ in the histories of mental health is the continued perpetuation of ‘negative and troubling representations or stereotypes of mental illness’. InPathways of patientsI seek to explore how the casebooks of the GLA provide a potential means to offer a ‘more 8 balanced representation’. The exploration of the casebooks is guided by 9 the benchmark established by Geoffrey Reaume, who aimed to present the patients of the Toronto Hospital as ‘individual human beings who deserve to be understood on their own terms aspeople’. In order to bring into view the humanity of the patients, I highlight the content of the casebooks that captures their unique life stories, distinct personal experiences and their 10 individuality.

By way of illustrating this approach, I turn to the casebook of Amina 11 Bayu. While the casebook opens with a ‘dehumanising process of 12 diagnosis and medicalization’ in which Amina is described as ‘absolutely apathetic’ and in later entries portrayed to be imprisoned in a ‘semi- cataleptic condition’, there are numerous other facets of information that may be strung together to present a portrait of her personhood. Prior to her admittal to the asylum, Amina had only been in the Cape Colony for seven years. Amina originally was from Abyssinia before she was abducted and forced into slavery. At the age of 11, she was rescued and sent to live at a mission station near the town of Alice in the Cape Colony. Amina remained at the mission station for six years before she left for East London to seek employment as a general servant. After several months in East London, she began to complain about a pain at the top of her head. Soon thereafter, she was admitted to the GLA in January 1897 at the age of 18. By May 1898 Amina was described as being convalescent from her mental illness and anxious to return to the mission station. Equally

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As above. C ColeborneWhy talk about madness? Bringing history into the conversation(2020) 6. Fumanti (n 5). G Reaumepatients past: Patient life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane,Remembrance of 1870–1940(2000) 5 (emphasis in original). R Bogdan & SJ Taylor ‘Relationships with severely disabled people: The social construction of humanness’ (1989) 36Social Problemsat 135. HGM (n 1) Vol 17 164. Fumanti (n 5).