Emma C. Spooner

'The Mind is Thoroughly Unhinged': Reading the Auckland Asylum Archive, New Zealand, 1900–1910

The very materiality of the 'asylum archive' contributes to the meanings of the sources that comprise it. In this article I examine two key themes in the interpretation of asylum records: the physical descriptions of patients, which reveal much about discourses of insanity; and the ways in which sounds of the asylum were recorded. Patient records are analysed here as constructions or representations, rather than reflections, of patient identities, uncovering new ways for reading these archival records.

Within the cool, air conditioned space of the Auckland branch of the National Archives, and beyond the archive's ordered computer equipment and complex systems of categorisation, lie the stories of those who challenged and deviated from order, calm, and categorisation. The records of patients who were confined in the Auckland Lunatic Asylum between 1900 and 1910 are among the sources held at the archives. The casebooks of the Auckland Asylum contain traces of people during their fleeting, or lengthy, brushes with colonial administration. These casebooks, and the patient identities that they contain, make up an important part of the 'asylum archive.'¹ This article examines this archive and patients' collisions with asylum authorities, and seeks to make a contribution to asylum historiography by examining casebooks as archival artefacts.

The analysis is centred around three key points. First, the archive deserves consideration as a physical space, and the very materiality of the archive to some extent contributes to the meanings of the sources that are held within it. This point has not been made by many historians in relation to asylum history.² Second, as historians have already argued, asylum casebooks should be read for their constructions of patients' identities, and consideration needs to be given to the manner in which these records were created. I demonstrate this by performing close readings of a selection of cases, and by looking at the ways in which the language used in the casebooks both reflects and produces social and medical discourses. Finally, I argue that despite the highly constructed nature of these archival records, we can find instances of patient 'agency.'

Together these points contribute to scholarly debates taking place around archival sources, as well as to those debating how the histories of 'madness' can be written. This article takes a poststructuralist approach to the examination of the ways in which the physical descriptions and sounds of patients were recorded by asylum staff and inspectors. These ideas are then related to a reading of the casebook as a physical artefact, examining how the physical representation of patient cases shapes the ways that these notes are read. I also examine the ways in which bodies are present in the casebooks, both through their physical presence, and through their sounds. Overall, this article examines the archives as a physical space, the asylum casebooks as an entity inside this space, and looks for evidence of what might be read as agency in the these casebooks. Stephen Garton argues that 'poststructuralism eschews the search for causes grounded in hidden structures, instead focusing on how language and culture themselves shape social and cultural life.'³ This article, then, focuses on the language and the culture surrounding 'madness,' and also illustrates how these may be read for evidence of agency and resistance to control in seemingly authoritative sources.

My analysis focuses on a small sample of the records from the casebooks of the Auckland Lunatic Asylum. The casebooks, which were kept from the asylum's inception in 1867, contained information summarised from the medical certificates permitting a patient's committal.⁴ They were updated throughout the patient's stay in the asylum at various intervals, becoming less frequent as the length of stay increased.⁵ This article concentrates on six cases from the casebooks used between 1900 and 1910. These cases were chosen to present a variety of patient situations. Although the number of cases is relatively small compared to many other studies of the asylum, this avoids being problematic due to the way the cases are used. This article looks closely at both the form and content of the cases, including the ways in which the cases were written, by paying attention to the language that was used. By 1900, typewritten pages in the casebooks meant that record keepers were constrained to prescribed spaces. This meant that discussions of family and previous history were both formally required, and necessarily brief. This article focuses on the casebooks, rather than case files and other sources, as for this period the majority of this additional information was missing. The individual cases I selected did not yield case files when I searched for other details to supplement my readings of patients and their experiences. This problem in itself highlights the 'subjectivity' of the archive. Our encounters with patients become brief brushes with administration. Their files are kept in multiple areas, and it is often not possible to track patients through their journeys in the system. We meet them sporadically, and partially; their residence in the asylum has little unity.⁶

This reading of archives is one that is reflected in recent literature. Internationally, the consideration of archives as highly constructed and politicised spaces is a growing field. The archive has, some historians now consider, lost its 'factual' status. Michael Moss' entry to The Companion to Historiography entitled 'Archives, The Historian and the Future,' provides an account of the archive. He details the archive's physical history; in other words, the process that led archives to become what they are today. Moss also discusses the various ways that archival records have been used, mentioning Annales historians, and discussing the tensions between the archivists and historians, and the arguments over which records are privileged.⁷ Spending a period in the archive has always been regarded as something of a 'rite of passage' for an historian, and the archives themselves as almost a place of worship.⁸

More recently, however, what has been termed the 'archival turn' has led historians to investigate the ways in which the sources they use came into being, and to question, as Ann Laura Stoler explains, 'how people imagine they know what they know and what institutions validate that knowledge.'⁹ Historians are now, usually in conjunction with poststructuralist ideas about language and discourses, critically examining this 'archival space,' and recognising that beyond being representations of existing discourses, archival sources are constructions that are governed to some extent by their location in cultural space as sites of knowledge. This work has carried on from the work of Michel Foucault, particularly his Archaeology of Knowledge (1972 [original in French, 1969]) and The Order of Things (1970 [original in French, 1966]).¹⁰ Historians of madness have tended to focus on the ideas put forward by Foucault in Madness and Civilization (1975), and Discipline and Punish (1961), which focus more explicitly on epistemologies, and discourses of power and control. I argue that Foucault's more 'source-based' work is just as relevant in this field, and that the archive can, to an extent, be considered another 'institution of control,' similar to an asylum, prison, or school. Writing about the traces of madness, Foucault has posed the question 'will these ... have become anything to the unknowing gaze but simple black marks?'¹¹ It is these 'black marks' that are to a large extent the focus of my research. Other historians have adopted and adapted Foucault's ideas, questioning the ways in which the archive not only reinforces but embodies discourses, particularly with respect to colonialism.¹² The majority of this scholarship occurred in the 1990s, but, as Carolyn Steedman notes, such considerations have been taking place since Foucault's work in the 1960s and 1970s.¹³

Interestingly, the majority of historians exploring these ideas are doing so within a colonial context. It is especially relevant in a colonial setting to scrutinise the ways in which archival sources were created, and to see colonial archives as what Stoler terms 'technologies of rule.'¹⁴ Stoler argues that 'the "archive" has been elevated to new theoretical status ... worthy of scrutiny on its own.'¹⁵ Historians are beginning to consider archives 'not simply as sources, but as sites of contested knowledges.'¹⁶ Antoinette Burton also insists upon the physicality of the archives as a space. For Burton, the archives themselves exemplify the control and omnipresence of colonial authorities, and also represent the masculine nature of colonial rule.¹⁷ Others, too, have recognised this inherent discourse of power. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, examining the Indian archive, is concerned with the question, 'As the historical record is made up, who is dropped out, when, and why?'¹⁸ She argues that the 'Rani of Sirmur,' whom she is attempting to trace, 'emerges only when she is needed in the space of imperial production.'¹⁹ Thus the archive, for Spivak, produces information about individuals in a deliberate and constructed manner.

This argument has particular relevance for the medical archive. Individuals appear in the records of medical institutions as patients, their identities constructed by medical language and knowledge. The negotiation between doctor and patient in medical records has been previously examined by historians. For the most part, the records of health and sickness that have ended up as part of official archival collections are those penned by doctors at the request of the state, and carry with them an air of authority, and a language peculiar to the medical profession. During the period under investigation, doctors, particularly in the European setting, were gaining greater status in society, as an increasing belief in the abilities of medical science, and science more generally, meant that more people were seeking the advice of doctors, and the profession itself was gathering more scientific momentum.²⁰ The language that came with this increased 'scientificism' can, to an extent, be revealed in these records. The inherent power of the doctor, then, as the creator of these records and the surveyor of the bodies of the sick, is reflected in the archival traces of illness.

The binary between patient and doctor has recently been further complicated by the inclusion of other bodies. Roy Porter has noted that 'medical events have frequently been complex social rituals involving family and community as well as sufferers and physicians.'²¹ It is now recognised that the 'doctor–patient relationship was normally a triangular one,' as the testimony and involvement of those assisting with the committal of patients are located within this exchange.²² This point is illustrated by tracing the changing dynamic of this relationship in the Bethlem asylum records, as the testimony of the patient became more traceable in later records. Here, instead of an unquestioned portrayal of the doctor holding the position of power, the 'silent tug-of-war over the possession of a story of illness' is considered.²³ These arguments have further been complicated by instances where case notes spilt beyond their designated areas. These occurrences perhaps give patients a form of agency, as 'the doctors, in practice, did not possess the power to reconstruct the individual as a "case"' in a straightforward manner.'²⁴

Medical records also can been read as gendered constructions. Observations of records of the late nineteenth century reveal that the discourses of power embodied in the relationship between doctor and patient were heightened when the patient was a female. The doctors in older medical records were invariably male, and their treatment of female patients adds a further dimension to the negotiations of power present in such records.²⁵ It has been noted, with regard to asylum history, that the 'objectifying language of the case-book employs a discursive notion of rationality that is both masculine and paternalistic.'²⁶ Historians have commented on the gendered language used to describe symptoms of women's illnesses, and often have highlighted the associations between this language and notions of femininity, sexuality, and reproduction. Women's bodies often presented a challenge to male doctors, and their misinterpretation of them is perhaps revealed by the large number of illnesses, both mental and physical, that were attributed to ammenhorea, dysmenhorea, and other reproductive problems.²⁷ The necessity to somehow conform women's bodies to representation within these records meant that 'medicine and its experts, therefore, also managed gender itself.'²⁸

Historians have further investigated the language used in medical documents, and have considered the ways in which this language constructs patients in certain ways. Medical records are the 'product of such factors as the ... medical culture of the period, rather than the result of impartial observation and recording.'²⁹ The language used in the records, particularly in the case of asylum records, is more indicative of the understandings about medicine and the insane body at the time of the records' creation than it is about the condition of the patients themselves. 'Causes of insanity,' then, speak more about the understandings of disease, and about the 'colonial condition,' than they do about the state of the patient.³⁰

In the asylum archive, the casebook is central to the construction of the patient's identity. Casebooks have become a major issue in the historiography of the asylum, and have recently been a well-used source amongst asylum historians. Attention to casebooks is not entirely new, but in recent times historians have concentrated on the social and cultural histories of the asylums, focusing on the experiences of patients—rather than doctors and officials—and on the discourses that have shaped asylum records in different contexts. Asylum histories can be placed into several broad categories. Some historians have deployed quantitative methods in their analysis, taking large samples from casebooks and other sources and looking for patterns, discrepancies, and commonalities in diagnosis.³¹ Others have adopted more qualitative approaches, focusing on the language of the casebooks and on the information that can be obtained from individual, or smaller numbers of, cases read in depth. Some historians—and this is increasingly the case—tend to combine the approaches, using both statistical and qualitative information in their work.³²

In different colonial contexts, asylums have been considered in relation to postcolonial scholarship. In the Indian context, James Mills has looked at the way that the asylums built for the 'native' population worked as both a form of control—because they allowed the British to assert their dominance to some extent—and as a form of knowledge—as the vast amount of statistics that such institutions collated allowed the British to better understand the people that they were colonising. Mills, with this and other work, is one of the few asylum historians who has explicitly brought the archive under the microscope. He questions the ways that the records were made, and highlights how this makes their use as 'factual' sources somewhat redundant, recognising that their value instead lies in what they can reveal about the ways in which such data was collated and categorised, and also how the subjects of the reports could be seen as exhibiting agency within their situations. Mills does not, however, consider that these patients exhibit agency, instead arguing that what may seem to be 'agency' is highly complex. He suggests that episodes of what could be called patient 'resistance ... may well have resulted in the frustration of colonial and medical designs but they were never intended to have such an impact.'³³ Also he states that it is 'one dimensional' to view those who co-operated with colonial administrators as oppressed, asserting that they also could be seen to have been taking advantage of opportunities presented to them by colonisation.³⁴

Other historians writing in settler colonial situations, perhaps more similar to the New Zealand situation, have made considerable contributions to the field.³⁵ For example, Sally Swartz, writing about South African psychiatry, applies self-avowed postmodern techniques to her reading of the asylum records that she employs.³⁶ Her approach also could be considered poststructuralist, as she is interested in the language used in the reports, and the ways that this language constructs patient identities. Similar approaches have been taken in other colonial contexts. In the recent collection, 'Madness' in Australia: histories, heritage and the asylum (2003), Dolly MacKinnon focuses, in two chapters, on the 'soundscape' of the asylum in Queensland.³⁷ Catharine Coleborne also has significantly contributed to histories of 'madness,' exploring ideas relating to the construction of gender and race within the space of the asylum in colonial Victoria, and the ways in which asylums in settler colonies contributed to systems of control and dominance.³⁸ Both MacKinnon and Coleborne's ideas have been valuable for this article, and will be explored later.

In New Zealand the literature concerning the asylum is relatively sparse, and well known to those in the field. A seminal article in terms of New Zealand asylum historiography is Bronwyn Labrum's 'Looking Beyond the Asylum' (1992), which raises questions about the ways that patient records can be read, and applies some of the ideas explored in an international context to the New Zealand situation.³⁹ A chapter drawing on this article also uses casenotes from the Auckland Asylum, and draws both qualitative and quantitative conclusions from these sources.⁴⁰ Labrum is particularly interested in ideas about gender in asylum committals and in the role of the family in this process.⁴¹ Other historians in New Zealand have explored Pakeha psychiatry, institutions in Christchurch and Dunedin, and the role of policy.⁴²

This article aims to contribute to this body of literature by taking a new approach to the sources of the asylum archive. It focuses on the records of the Auckland Lunatic Asylum, or the 'Whau,' which was established in 1867.⁴³ Previously, patients had been catered for in the Auckland hospital. By 1900 the patient population was 1,797, and this had risen to 3,548 by 1910.⁴⁴ The inspector's reports of the colony's asylums were made annually from the 1870s, and were published in the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives. These reports have become a valuable resource for historians of the asylum, as they contain a wealth of information about procedures in asylums, causes of insanity, expenditure, deaths, and the asylum population. This article will focus upon the patient casenotes, from which the statistics accompanying the reports were largely derived, rather than other primary sources, in order to specifically explore the casebooks as archival artefacts.

'He effected his escape by removing the slip': The casebook as artefact

In the reading room of the Auckland Branch of the National Archives, a sign reminds patrons that the order of the documents is part of the historical evidence. Yet as one sifts through the folders it constantly becomes apparent that this order is somewhat arbitrary at times. Whilst reading through information about specific materials, one is made aware of the constructed nature of this 'order.' For instance, the statement in the introduction to the casebooks reads: '[T]he casebooks were found in very bad condition. The pages of 1048/13 were in complete disorder. Many of them had been subsequently used as worksheets for constructing staff rosters.'⁴⁵ And yet the pages of casebook 1048/13 have been re-ordered as much as possible, one imagines for the benefit of the public. Which order, then, is more relevant to the 'historical evidence'? The numerical order that the pages were perhaps intended to be kept in, or the perceived dis-order that the casebook pages were found in?

This perhaps serves to remind us of the highly constructed nature of archival sources. They did not arrive in the archives without human intervention. In engaging with archival sources, the historian is immediately involved in a complex negotiation. The organisation of sources and the serendipity involved in finding sought-after documents becomes an integral part of the historical process. The Auckland Asylum records' archival listing reveals gaps in the succession of casebooks, and many other records that have been lost or destroyed. The seemingly artificial separation of sources further complicates their location by historians. Notes made in the casebooks refer to sources such as the Chronic Loose Leaf Book, the pages of which have since been distributed into separate patient casefiles, and many of these files no longer exist.⁴⁶ Those that are still housed in the archives are linked tenuously by a series of index cards which are constantly being edited and updated.

Furthermore, the records themselves are constructed by those creating them. The casebooks were not written by an 'objective' hand, and, as is now widely recognised among asylum historians, can be seen as reflecting the discourses that were prevalent in society at the time in which they were created. Moreover, as I have already argued, the format of these casebooks forced record keepers to constrain patients to representations. Notes were only able to be made under prescribed headings, and patients' identities were constructed within medical structures. There are, as is indicated in Figure 1, prescribed areas, and limited spaces for patients' medical notes, medical histories and condition on admission. Some patients, however, were unwilling to be confined by these structures. On occasion notes spill over from one section to another, with sections entitled 'patient's history' being partially filled by notes from their medical certificates, and other sections being left blank, or barely written in.

Figure 1: A page from casebook 1048/9 showing the layout of the casebook pages and the constrained space available for patient notes. (Courtesy The Auckland Branch of the National Archives, New Zealand. Source:Medical Casebooks, folio 355, YCAA 1048/9, NA).

Historian Akihito Suzuki comments on a similar phenomenon in Bethlem asylum, noting that 'the important point is that [the] entry not only contains much surplus information ... but also physically spills over the two sections below, unrestrained by the printed format.'⁴⁷ He goes on to argue that this suggests that medical staff of Bethlem were 'unable to process and neatly pigeonhole the data they received' and sees this patient 'defiance' evident in the records as challenging Foucault's ideas about case records as forms of absolute power and knowledge.⁴⁸

These ideas also might apply to the Auckland examples. Each patient was only designated a double page of the casebook. Typically, once their notes exceed this length, a note appears, stating that the patient has been 'transferred to the chronic loose leaf casebook.' We hear no more of these patients, without seeking them out again in their new, more permanent home, which in many cases no longer exists. Some cases challenge this system, however, refusing to be relegated to the chronic loose leaf casebook. For example Joseph W's story begins on folio 108, continues to folio 111—after the notes of another patient—then continues again on folio 112—after yet another patient—and then again is continued on folio 114.⁴⁹ Like Joseph himself, who continuously complained about his incarceration, and escaped for several days, the case is unwilling to be contained within prescribed structures. In addition, Joseph was described not only as a 'patient,' but, like other cases, as a physical 'body.'

'Bodily health good': The bodies of the 'mad'

'Physical bodies' are overwhelmingly present in the archive, with flesh and bones accosting the reader at every turn of the page. Asylum staff were assiduous about making physical descriptions of patients. On admission, extensive notes were taken about the physical condition of the patients. The language used in such descriptions is an interesting mix of seemingly 'medical' terms and descriptions, and more pejorative terms that reveal ideas prevalent beyond the asylum. Typically the physical description of patients began with their vital details, or more apparently 'medical' observations. A large section of the notes was devoted to such descriptions. Comments such as 'Tongue slightly furred – appetite good – bowels regular' or 'veins of right thigh are varicose' appear relatively frequently.⁵⁰ Patients' temperatures, pulse, bodily functions, and conditions of lungs and breathing also were routinely recorded as part of the admission process. This section of the article comments upon the textual constructions of patients' bodies.

The use of medical language implies a link between the physical and mental health of the patient, and perhaps, to some extent, indicates that mental illness was seen by those within the medical institutions as just that: a form of illness. Patients were not often, as far as we can tell, given any treatment or medication other than what was required to aid their physical problems. Their physical health was important, and was seen to be linked to mental well-being. The continued condition of a patient's health was regularly noted in the casebooks, with statements such as 'bodily health good' appearing frequently.⁵¹

This medical language is contradicted by language that more clearly reveals the influences of wider discourses surrounding 'madness.' Joseph W was a forty-nine-year-old male transferred to Auckland Asylum from Mt Eden prison. Joseph's crime is hinted at in the records, with a comment made about attempted murder. But we are never clearly told of Joseph's crime, only that his sentence expired on 28 May 1907. The date of his committal to the Asylum is 1 April 1901. He was admitted suffering from 'bouts of mania,' and was considered 'violent.'⁵² The description of Joseph ends with the statement 'Patient in his general appearance – smug mouthed – stubble bearded & c. suggests to one at once the idea of a criminal such as one sees pictured in "Punch."'⁵³ Joseph's status as a 'criminal' is reinforced by his physical description. His 'stubble beard' indicates to asylum staff that he is somehow criminal-like in appearance, and yet we are later told that he repeatedly complained about not being able to shave properly, and about the lack of access to adequate razors. So Joseph's lack of grooming somehow reflects his personality, even when it is due to the circumstances of his incarceration that he appears in his unshaven state. This association of Joseph with a criminal may indicate the strength of the link between criminality and insanity in the early–twentieth century.⁵⁴

Bodies in the asylum also were 'raced' in some respects.⁵⁵ William W, who can be seen in Figure 2, was admitted on 8 December 1903. He was a thirty-six-year-old 'half caste Maori.' He was suffering from 'congenital imbecility,' and had previously worked as a gumdigger. He was described in appearance as 'a tall young half caste Maori, typical Maori features.'⁵⁶ No other descriptions were needed, according to asylum staff, because William was, in appearance, a 'typical Maori.' His identification as 'half caste Maori' is significant, as it indicates clearly that he is identified by his appearance. It could perhaps be argued that this racial identification was in some ways being related to his 'uncivilised' behaviour. William was reported to have been 'drinking his own urine' and had 'made indecent proposals' to women—behaviours that severely challenged the 'norms' of European culture.⁵⁷ It was also reported that William 'imagines that one of his parents was English,' which, given his identification as 'half caste,' as well as the fact that asylum authorities stated that they 'cannot tell much about his parentage,' was highly possible.⁵⁸ Racial descriptions in this case seemed to stand in for a more medical examination of William. Although he was physically examined, with his vital signs being recorded in a manner similar to that of the other patients, less attention was given to his description, as it was presumed that by simply identifying him as Maori, no further details were needed.⁵⁹

Figure 2: Photograph of William W. This photograph accompanies William's casenotes, and highlights the ways that the 'bodies' of patients were present in the casebooks. (Courtesy The Auckland Branch of the National Archives, New Zeaand. Source: Medical Casebooks, folio 29, YCAA 1048/10, NA)

Comments about the physical differences of patients also were linked to a construction of what could be perceived as 'mad.' The patients in the asylum needed to be seen as somehow different to staff, and to members of the wider public, so that their treatment and incarceration could be seen as justified. Patients are frequently said to have 'wild stares' and 'sullen expressions.'⁶⁰ Their physical descriptions serve to remind staff that these people are 'mad' and do need special treatment. Such descriptions also, to an extent, reveal the way that 'madness' was seen to have a face. It was visually recognisable in patients. These ideas reinforce the relationship between public and private discourses; in other words, the interaction between the way that 'madness' was conceptualised within the asylum, and amongst the general public.

Also reflected in the depth of the medical observations is the patients' lack of agency. Patients were subjected to various medical tests, and they were thoroughly examined for any physical deformities or abnormalities. Comments such as 'tongue slightly furred' and 'veins of right thigh are varicose' indicate the extent to which patients were examined. Records also were made of their bowel movements on admittance, and any presence of diarrhoea during their stay in the asylum is recorded, treated, and monitored. These are further examples of the medical discourses surrounding insanity. Patients were, to a large extent, physically at the mercy of asylum staff. There is evidence, however, of what could be read as patient resistance to asylum authorities, and resistance to the reforming controls of the asylum. Elizabeth K was a forty-four-year-old housewife suffering from 'acute mania.' She was suicidal, and her 'exciting cause' was described as 'domestic worry.' Elizabeth remained in the asylum for just over a month after her committal on 9 November 1903, and 'refuse[d] her food' during her entire stay. This refusal, and rejection, of what authorities believed was best for her, could be seen as a form of resistance.⁶¹ The notes supporting her refusal indicate that she 'continues resistive and stubborn' and that she is 'still very depressed.'⁶² But without further evidence, we are unable to determine what Elizabeth's reasons for refusing her food were. She was fed through an oesophageal tube twice daily on 'milk, beef tea and four eggs per diem,' and, not surprisingly, her physical condition is frequently reported as 'rather frail.' And yet suddenly, thirteen days later, we find that Elizabeth 'has been taking her food well for the last few days' and is seen 'orderly and agreeable and talks sencibly [sic].'⁶³ There is no explanation given for the change in Elizabeth's eating habits. The note simply appears thirteen days after we were last informed that she was not eating. Ten days later, and after no further notes, she was 'discharged, recovered.'⁶⁴

The gaps in the records such as Elizabeth's case are telling. It is mainly when patients were misbehaving, or challenging social norms, that their behaviour was recorded in depth. For the majority, it seems that appropriate or 'sane' behaviour is to a large extent missing from the reports. Generally when patients were presumably behaving as required, and were not causing attention to be drawn to themselves, very few notes were made, except to remind us that there has been 'little change since last note.' A similar pattern was seen with regards to the patients' physical health. When they were healthy, and their bodies were conforming to acceptable behaviours, a note simply stating 'bodily health good' appeared in the records. Sometimes this was the only record made for weeks, or even months. It was when patients were ill, and their bodies were challenging regulations, that the behaviours of these bodies were recorded in detail. It was aberrant behaviour that was explicitly recorded; in other words, when bodies, either physical or mentally, were deviant and causing trouble they were noticed, and attempts were made to 'mend' them.

Bodies also were 'gendered' in the asylum casebooks.⁶⁵ The physical descriptions of patients both construct and reflect gender discourses of colonial New Zealand. Women's bodies were considered to be more threatening and uncontrollable than men's bodies. This idea can be illustrated by the case of Mary-Jane S, who was a thirty-seven-year-old house wife. She was reported to be 'rambling in her talk,' 'unmanageable' and in danger of doing 'some bodily harm to herself or those near her,' and was repeatedly in a state of undress.⁶⁶ Her husband stated that 'at midnight [one] morning she left the house almost in a nude state and travelled to Park Road and hid underneath the house of her brother-in-law.' He also commented on her tendency to 'walk the paddock, almost naked at night.'⁶⁷ Her brother-in-law similarly commented on how she 'wanders about without any clothes' and 'was nearly naked.'⁶⁸ Mary-Jane is presented as far from the archetypal early–twentieth century woman, and her propensity to disregard her clothing is seen by male members of her family to be a significant factor in her insanity. In her physical behaviour, near nakedness, and speech—'rambling' and noisy—she signalled herself as outside the bounds of normal behaviour.

'The music also is of an insane character': The sounds of the asylum

Just as fleshy bodies appear in the asylum archive, challenging us with their bodily presence, so too do we find traces of sound and noise in the archives through the casebooks. Thus, bodies are not only physically present, but audibly locatable to a large extent. Dolly MacKinnon argued that 'nineteenth and early twentieth-century medical and lay communities not only knew what madness looked like, but also they knew what madness sounded like.'⁶⁹ Moreover, sounds served to differentiate patients from staff in the same way that the physical identifications of the 'mad' patients had done, which is, again, observed by MacKinnon in her work: '[W]hile clothing and uniforms visually differentiated members of the asylum community, sound also was used to define and differentiate the sane from the insane ... the inmates from the attendants.'⁷⁰ These ideas clearly are supported by the casebooks from Auckland Asylum. The casebooks reveal the 'soundscape' of the asylum, and patients were frequently recorded as somehow violating accepted noise through sound, making noises that were either incomprehensible or inappropriate.⁷¹

Take for example Elizabeth K, who previously has been mentioned here for her refusal of food. Her notes indicate that she 'keeps up a constant singing of an incoherent flow of words ... The burden of her song as far as one could make out was calling upon her son to come back.' In a later, and more detailed note set out below, her auditory deviance is more clearly exemplified:

[V]ery restless and maniacal. Sits on chair with her eyes closed, hair dishevelled, spends most of her time singing, at times known songs, but as a rule she sings something like an operatic recitation, the words of which she makes up as she sings and they are incoherent, the music also is of an insane character, she frequently becomes very noisy, shouts at the top of her voice, is resistive and inclined to be violent and occasionally becomes depressed and bursts out crying, hardly ever makes any reply to questions, but when she does she addresses those about her by their proper titles and seems to notice everything that is going on around her.⁷²

Through notes such as this it is possible for us to hear, and to picture, Elizabeth as she may have appeared to asylum authorities. MacKinnon suggests that music and singing were seen as beneficial forms of recreation. She argues, however, that singing was only regarded in a positive light if it followed the conventions of the asylum. Singing was seen as an expression of feeling, and as a relief to the patients.⁷³ Despite Elizabeth's singing expressing her feelings towards her lost son, and relieving some of her grief, it took a form deemed unacceptable to asylum staff because it did not fit into the structure of the asylum, and was seen as evidence of insanity.

Even the noises that might seem to be acceptable could be recorded as symptomatic of madness. William M was a twenty-year-old clerk who suffered from 'hereditary adolescent insanity' and whose mind was exquisitely reported to be 'thoroughly unhinged.'⁷⁴ It is recorded that William would 'wander ... about the airing court and sing... hymns at the top of his voice,' behaviour that was seen as sign of his insanity. He was singing songs that were recognised by asylum staff, and songs that would in other circumstances be considered appropriate, if not beneficial, but because he was singing in an unspecified time and place, he was seen as acting in a deviant manner. Both William and Elizabeth vocally violated the constraints of asylum life by singing out of accordance with the correct style, time, and place of 'noise'; and this non-conformity served to reinforce their insanity to staff.

In fact, patients frequently were recorded as violating the accepted times for noise. It was commented that patients were noisy at night, which was when they should have been resting quietly. Making noise at night was seen as an important aspect of insanity, and is commented upon in many cases. William M was reported on 1 September 1905 as being 'sleepless nearly all night last night, and was noisy.' Again on 11 September, after numerous nights of confinement to a single room (which was intended as a punishment, but might be considered otherwise given the company the asylum afforded) it was reported that 'last night he was noisy, sleepless and destructive' and still later he was described as 'generally noisy during the night.'⁷⁵

Also of note in the report extract above is that Elizabeth was seen as 'resistive' due to her unwillingness to answer questions. She resisted asylum control both physically, through her refusal of food, and orally, through her silences. She was, however, unwilling to be easily categorised, supporting Suziki's argument about doctors being unable to 'pigeonhole' patients as cases.⁷⁶ At times Elizabeth was coherent and co-operative in her responses to questions, and it was reported that she 'addresses those about her by their proper titles and seems to notice everything that is going on around her.'⁷⁷ Whilst asylum staff read this incommunicativeness as further proof of 'madness,' we also may read these silences and responses as examples of agency. Patients such as Elizabeth may have refused to answer questions that they were uncomfortable with, and may have acquiesced only when it suited them to appear responsive and 'sane.' Yet this is not revealed by the records. We are unable to discern which questions were being answered, and which were not, and this reading of agency is thus one that can be neither proved nor disproved. Questions of agency such as this reveal the potential of a poststructuralist reading technique, and highlight the possibilities that are made viable when sources are read 'against the grain.'

Further evidence of the way in which rules of appropriate noise-making constructed the insane patient is the fact that improvements in patients' conditions also were related to noise. When patients were behaving as asylum staff thought they should, and were showing signs of improvement, this was reflected in aural accounts. Joseph W was often reported as complaining about the behaviour of asylum staff. He accused them of using 'filthy language' and of abuse.⁷⁸ When Joseph, however, was seen by asylum staff to be recovering, it was recorded that he 'still reports the attendants for annoying and beating him, but not so often as he used to.'⁷⁹ Similarly, Mary-Jane S, who spent time trying to undress herself, was later reported as being 'fairly quiet and well conducted as a rule.'⁸⁰ Again, though, there is no continuation in these cases, no constant 'narrative of recovery.' Patients that have been depicted as 'quiet and well conducted' can at next note be 'very changeable ... at times extremely noisy.'⁸¹ There is no traceable narrative that moves from ill to well, either through sounds, physical condition, or, it seems, any other mode.⁸²

One further point of relevance with regard to what we can 'hear' through the casebooks is that of the recorded 'voice.' We can somewhat recover the voices of those making the casenotes, as it is their judgements and their words that we are presented with. It is their opinions, to some extent, that echo through the casebooks themselves. At times, such as the alleged case of abuse involving Joseph W, attendants were called upon to give their sides of the story. But generally, we are privy only to the voice of medical reason: that of the doctor. It is this voice that lends authority to diagnoses of madness, and this voice that casts judgement on the patients. And yet we are unable to discern exactly to whom this voice belongs, as the casebooks for the decade seem to all be written in one of two hands, one more legible than the other. It is likely that we are reading the actual words of many different doctors or staff members—as presumably the same one or two people would have been unable to attend to each individual case—simply all recorded by only one or two scribes. So the homogenous handwriting is to some extent misleading, as it connotes a unity that the casebook does not possess. The opinions, while being somewhat traceable, are not able to be assigned to those that hold them—a fact we must be wary of in considering their contribution to our analysis.

Conclusions

As I closed the pages of the casebooks, returning them to the order and control of the archives' storage area, I realised that my encounter with them may have ruffled the 'order' somewhat. I have sought to challenge the authority that the language of the casebooks once had, and to investigate how this language was used to identify patients as 'mad,' both physically and audibly. Foucault's 'black marks' are still recognisable, and still meaningful. But it is by recognising that they really are 'black marks' that their deeper meanings can be attained. This article has focused on the casebooks as physical representations, and has engaged with poststructuralist ideas about the interdependence of the material within the casebooks—their content—and their status as material artefacts belonging to an archive—their form. Casebooks need to be read with their physical constraints in mind. Asylum staff were not the only ones inscribing patient identities through language, because these were also constructed through the physical layout of the casebook, and this constrains staff as much as it does patients.

By examining a small number of cases from the asylum, I have revealed some of the ways that patients made themselves present in the casebooks in ways other than asylum staff intended when the notes were taken. Patients emerge from the casebooks through their physicality and audibility, and they make themselves present through the speech and behaviour that is recorded by asylum staff. I have been able to show that both 'fleshy' and 'noisy' bodies were present in the casebooks. I have also investigated the ways in which physical descriptions of patients were used to construct them as somehow different to 'sane' people, and to examine the discourses surrounding 'madness' that the language in the casebooks both perpetuated and created. I have demonstrated that by 'listening' to the sounds of the patients, further insights into the histories of the asylum are possible.

Furthermore, a poststructuralist reading of the casebooks allows one to unearth instances of patient 'agency' and resistance by looking at the silences, gaps, and interstices in the archival sources. Mills has warned of the reduction that can come from reading such agency and resistance into patients' actions, but I would argue that it is imperative to consider it as a possibility, and that seeking instances of agency can contribute to a richer, and more multidimensional, reading of sources.⁸³

This research has been about the collision between patients and asylum authorities, and yet, in a way, it has also been about my collision with the asylum archive. In order to confront these sources, I had to move into the space of the archives, and somehow disturb the order that prevailed there. This is an order that I believe needs to be further unsettled by historians. The consideration of the constructed nature of source material can play an important role in revealing meanings that are somewhat tacit in primary sources.

University of Waikato

Acknowledgements

This article is based on an Honours Research Paper completed in 2004 at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Dr Catharine Coleborne, who supervised this project, as well as the editors of Health and History and the two anonymous reviewers for their support and suggestions.

Notes

^1. James Mills, Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'Native-Only' Lunatic Asylums of British India, 1857–1900 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

^2. There are some exceptions to this, and these will be discussed later in this study. Most notably, James Mills, Akihito Suzuki, and Catharine Coleborne have questioned the ways in which case notes were constructed and the implications of this for patients' identities.

^3. Stephen Garton, "On the Defensive: Poststructuralism and Australian Cultural History" in Cultural History in Australia, edited by Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2003), 52.

^4. Medical Casebooks, Carrington Hospital (hereafter, YCAA), Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga, Auckland Regional Office (hereafter NA), Auckland, New Zealand.

^5. The maintenance of the casebooks was governed by legislation. For further information see Lunatics Act 1868 (New Zealand); Lunatics Act 1882 (New Zealand).

^6. This idea is further investigated in my Master's Thesis—see Emma Spooner, "Digging for the Families of the 'Mad': Locating the Family in the Auckland Asylum Archives, 1870s–1910s" (MA thesis, University of Waikato, 2006).

^7. Michael Moss, "Archives, the Historian and the Future" in Companion to Historiography, edited by Michael Bentley (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 960–73.

^8. Carolyn Steedman, Dust (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 8–9.

^9. Ann Laura Stoler, "Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance: On the Content of the Form" in, Refiguring the Archive, edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, Jane Taylor, Michele Pickover, Graeme Reid, and Razia Saleh (Dordrecht and London: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 86.

^10. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge [Archéologie du Savoir, 1969] (London: Tavistock Publications, 1972); Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences [Les Mots et Les Choses, 1966] (London: Tavistock, 1970).

^11. Foucault, "Madness, the Absence of Work," Critical Inquiry 2 (1995): 290–8, 290.

^12. See for instance: Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home and History in Late Colonial India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Carolyn Hamilton, et al. (eds), Refiguring the Archive (Dordrecht and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002); Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire (New York and London: Verso, 1993). An often-cited work in this field is Jacques Derrida's "Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression" Diacritics 25, no. 2 (1995): 9–63.

^13. Steedman, 2.

^14. Stoler, 83.

^15. Ibid., 86.

^16. Hamilton, et al. (eds), 15.

^17. Burton, 26–7.

^18. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives," History and Theory 24 (1985): 247–2 , 270.

^19. Ibid.

^20. Diana Dyason, "The Medical Profession in Colonial Victoria, 1834–1901," in Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion, edited by Roy MacLeod and Milton Lewis (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), 194–216.

^21. Roy Porter, "The Patient's View: Doing Medical History from Below," Theory & Society 14 (1985): 175–98, 175.

^22. Akihito Suzuki, "Framing Psychiatric Subjectivity: Doctor, Patient and Record-Keeping at Bethlem in the Nineteenth Century," in Insanity, Institutions and Society, 1800–1914: A Social History of Madness in Comparative Perspective, edited by Joseph Melling and Bill Forsythe (London: Routledge, 1999), 116.

^23. Ibid., 119.

^24. Ibid.

^25. Dyason, 194–216.

^26. Catharine Coleborne, "'She Does up her Hair Fantastically': The Production of Femininity in Patient Case-books of the Lunatic Asylum in 1860s Victoria," in Forging Identities: Bodies, Gender and Feminist History, edited by Jane Long, Jan Gothard, and Helen Brash (Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press, 1997), 63.

^27. Ibid., 47–68. See also Brownyn Labrum, "Looking Beyond the Asylum: Gender and the Process of Committal in Auckland, 1870–1910," New Zealand Journal of History 26 (1992) 125–44; Bronwyn Labrum, "The Boundaries of Femininity: Madness and Gender in New Zealand, 1870–1910," in Women. Madness and the Law: A Feminist Reader, edited by Wendy Chan, Dorothy E. Chunn, and Robert Menzies (London: Glasshouse Press, 2005), 59–78; Hilary Marland, Dangerous Motherhood: Insanity and Childbirth in Victorian Britain (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillon, 2004).

^28. Alison Bashford, "Gender, Medicine and Empire," in Gender and Empire: The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 6, edited by Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 113.

^29. Mills, 24.

^30. These ideas are explored more thoroughly with regard to New Zealand in the work of Labrum—see "Looking Beyond the Asylum" and "The Boundaries of Femininity."

^31. David Wright, "Delusions of Gender? Lay Identification and Clinical Diagnosis of Insanity in Victorian England," in Sex and Seclusion, Class and Custody: Perspectives on Gender and Class in the History of British and Irish Psychiatry, edited by Jonathan Andrews and Anne Digby (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004), 149–76.

^32. See for example: Pamela Michael, "Class, Gender and Insanity in Nineteenth-Century Wales," in Sex and Seclusion, Class and Custody: Perspectives on Gender and Class in the History of British and Irish Psychiatry, edited by Jonathan Andrews and Anne Digby (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004), 95–122. Michael combines wider data with close readings of a select number of cases to investigate the role that gender and class played on ideas of insanity in nineteenth-century Wales.

^33. Mills, 182.

^34. Ibid.; See also: Waltraud Ernst, Mad tales from the Raj: The European Insane in British India, 1800–1858 (London: Routledge, 1991). Ernst also writes about India, but the focus of her study is the asylums that provided for the British population. Accordingly she focuses more on the ways in which Indian institutions differed from British asylums, and her emphasis becomes more legislative and colonial than that of Mills.

^35. See for example: Stephen Garton, Medicine and Madness: A Social History of Insanity in New South Wales 1880–1940 (Kensington: New South Wales Press, 1988). This text has made a significant contribution to the use of case notes as sources in Australia, and in the role of gender in asylum histories.

^36. Sally Swartz, "Shrinking: A Postmodern Perspective on Psychiatric Case Histories," South African Journal of Psychology 26 (1996): 50–156.

^37. Dolly MacKinnon, "'Hearing Madness': The Soundscape of the asylum," in 'Madness' in Australia: Histories, Heritage and the Asylum, edited by Catharine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2003); Dolly MacKinnon, "'Jolly and Fond of Singing': The Gendered Nature of Musical Entertainment in Queensland Mental Institutions c1870–c1937," in 'Madness' in Australia: Histories, Heritage and the Asylum, edited by Catharine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2003). See also MacKinnon, "'The Trustworthy Agency of the Eyes': Reading Images of Music and Madness in Historical Context," Health and History 5, no. 2 (2003), 123–49.

^38. Catharine Coleborne, "Passage to the Asylum: The Role of the Police in Committals of the Insane in Victoria, Australia, 1848–1900," in The Confinement of the Insane: International Perspectives, 1800–1965, edited by Roy Porter and David Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 45–65; "Making 'Mad' Populations in Settler Colonies: The Work of Law and Medicine in the Creation of the Colonial Asylum," in Law, History and Colonialism: The Reach of Empire, edited by Diane Kirkby and Catharine Coleborne (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001), 106–22.

^39. Labrum, "Looking Beyond the Asylum."

^40. Labrum, "The Boundaries of Femininity."

^41. This article is derived from Bronwyn Labrum, "Gender and Lunacy: A Study of Women Patients at the Auckland Lunatic Asylum 1970–1910" (Master's Thesis, Massey University, 1990), which is similarly focused on the role that social constructions of gender played in the committal of patients to Auckland Asylum.

^42. Waltraud Ernst, "The Social History of Pakeha Psychiatry in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand: Main Themes," in A Healthy Country: Essays on the Social History of Medicine in New Zealand, edited by Linda Bryder (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1991), 65–84; Barbara Brookes, "Women and Madness: A Case-Study of the Seacliff Asylum, 1890–1920," in Women in History 2: Essays on Women in New Zealand, edited by Barbara Brookes, Charlotte MacDonald, and Margaret Tennant (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1992), 129–47; Barbara Brookes and Jane Thomson, eds, 'Unfortunate Folk': Essays on Mental Health Treatment 1863–1992 (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2001); Warwick Brunton, "Colonies for the Mind: The Historical Context of Services for Forensic Psychiatry in New Zealand," in Psychiatry and the Law: Clinical and Legal Issues, edited by Warren Brookbanks (Wellington: Brookers, 1996), 3–59; Brunton, "The Origins of Deinstitutionalisation in New Zealand," Health and History 5, no. 2 (2003): 75–103.

^43. The Auckland Asylum had several name changes over the course of the twentieth century, and is often referred to as Carrington asylum.

^44. "Report on Lunatic Asylums of the Colony," Appendices in the Journals to the House of Representatives (1901): H-7, 1 and (1911): H-7, 2.

^45. Description of YCAA 1048 series materials, Information Folder, NA.

^46. Medical Casebooks, folio 112, YCAA 1048/9, NA.

^47. Suzuki, 119.

^48. Ibid.

^49. Medical Casebooks, folios 108, 111, 112, 114, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^50. Medical Casebooks, folio 108, YCAA 1048/9;a folio 11, YCAA1048/10, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^51. Medical Casebooks, folio 266, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^52. Medical Casebooks, folio 108, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^53. Ibid.

^54. The links between madness and criminality in the colonial context are discussed by historians such as Labrum, Coleborne, and Ernst.

^55. Other historians of the asylum have considered issues of race when approaching case notes. For examples, see: Labrum, Coleborne, Mills, Swartz, and Ernst.

^56. Medical Casebooks, folio 29, YCAA 1048/10, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^57. Ibid.

^58. Ibid.

^59. For further discussion of Maori patients in the Auckland Asylum, see Lorelle Burke, "Maori Patients at the Auckland Lunatic Asylum, 1860–1900" (Master's Thesis, University of Waikato, 2006).

^60. Ibid.

^61. Medical Casebooks, folio 11, YCAA 1048/10, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^62. Ibid.

^63. Ibid.

^64. Ibid. Elizabeth's case highlights the idea of narratives of recovery. This is an area that has been discussed by Coleborne in the context of colonial Victoria. Bodies were seen as being manageable or unmanageable, and this is reflected in many different ways. The desire and ability of patients to work, or not work, is seen as an important feature of their recovery, and is regularly commented on, as is their voluntary intake of food. Similarly, their relation to noises can be seen as part of the 'language of recovery,' as comments were frequently made on patients' audible behaviour. Coleborne, "She Does up her Hair Fantastically," 58–60.

^65. Historians such as Labrum, Brookes, Coleborne, Garton, and Swartz have considered the role that gender played both in the committal of patients to the colonial asylum, and in their diagnosis and treatment.

^66. Medical Casebooks, folio 266, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^67. Ibid.

^68. Ibid.

^69. MacKinnon, "Hearing Madness," 74.

^70. MacKinnon, "Hearing Madness," 74–5.

^71. Ibid.

^72. Medical Casebooks, folio 11, YCAA 1048/10, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^73. MacKinnon, "Jolly and Fond of Singing," 165.

^74. Medical Casebooks, folio 355, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^75. Medical Casebooks, folio 355, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^76. Suzuki, 119.

^77. Medical Casebooks, folio 11, YCAA1048/10, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^78. Medical Casebooks, folio 108, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand. The occurrence of these instances in the case notes themselves indicate that agency can be read into such sources. Joseph's account of the abuse is given in full, and his complaints against staff are recorded. This may be seen by staff as evidence of his insanity, but we can suggest from such recordings that there is a possibility that such occurrences did in fact take place, and that Joseph may have been telling the truth. As is often the case, it is not possible here to know whether his account, or the official response, or something in between them, is what actually happened. However, the very appearance of this contestation of events is significant to the reading of patient voices, and patient agency, in official records such as the casebook.

^79. Medical Casebooks, folio 108, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^80. Medical Casebooks, folio 266, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^81. Medical Casebooks, folio 355, YCAA 1048/9, NA, Auckland, New Zealand.

^82. Coleborne discusses the idea of a narrative of recovery in her "She Does her Hair up Fantastically," 58–60.

^83. Mills, 178–80.

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