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| Portion of an Architectural drawing of the Male Ward No. 1 at Woogaroo dated 1886. Queensland State Archives Item ID 580502 |
In this post I republish two articles by ‘Gil Blas’, concerning life in the Woogaroo Asylum, Goodna, in 1890. The articles are from the National Library of Australia’s on-line newspaper archive, Trove, they paint a fascinating picture of the 19th Century treatment and approach to mental illness as well as colourful stories of inmates in various stages of what was then known as 'lunacy'.
‘Gil Blas’ is probably a pseudonym rather than the author’s true name, and was the name of an early eighteenth century French novel. ‘Gil Blas’ had an eighteen month publishing stint with The Queensland Times, an Ipswich based newspaper. I found 61 articles by ‘Gil Blas’ starting in July 1889 which seem to conclude in the November of 1890.
These two articles were published a week apart in the January of 1890 in the Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, Part I on Saturday 11 Jan and Part II on Saturday 18 Jan. They could be seen as part of a series looking at various locations around Ipswich.
The articles provide a snapshot of the Woogaroo Asylum. ‘Gil Blas’ enjoys quoting other sources in his writing. I have attempted to source the quotes and this information is provided within the text as yellow highlighted text. ‘Gil Blas’ does emerge from my quote checking process as a well-read newspaper correspondent, and one with a broad curiosity about matters related to insanity.
Queensland's Madmen.
No. 1 THE HORRORS AND HAPPINESS OF WOOGAROO.
[By Gil Blas.]
THE MADNESS OF CAIN
Listen! We were inspecting the only remnant of the early days of Queensland's madhouse — four or five defiant-looking iron bars in a window of the original building — when we heard some unearthly yells, and, passing through into an enclosed yard, I saw the face of a human being, horribly contorted, fixed in a square hole in the door of a crib-like cell, in which he was confined. Terrible, melancholy sight! At times his visage was withdrawn, his hands fixed in the opening, and, with kicks and oaths, he attempted to burst open the door which held him prisoner. "That is the worst man in the asylum," said Dr. Scholes, who kindly accompanied me; — "the only man we have to keep in confinement." And he beckoned to a warder to release the lunatic. His name was Cain M—, a young Irishman, who landed here in 1886, and has been an inmate of the asylum since 1887. What a name is this to brand on a child! Byron has thrown a halo of interest around Cain; but who can imagine a parent so admiring, or so lost to reason, as to give his child, in all its innocence and helplessness, the name of the first murderer? But let that pass. "We import about 17 percent of our lunatics," said the Doctor; and Cain was one of these. When dressed he bounded out of his prison, shook hands all round, demanded his watch and freedom, and then, in the wildest frenzy, cursed England at one time, and the Parnellites [a nationalist parliamentary party in Ireland] at another, knelt down, and made the sign of the cross. "Come now, Cain," said the doctor, at length, in a kindly manner ; "you must have your tea. Be a good boy." Suddenly the wild ferocity left the countenance of the madman; he looked at us with a piteous Irish smile, and begged the Doctor's pardon in the most apologetic language. Gleanes of mental enlightenment came over him for a time in the sacred flame of kindness and sympathy.
"Oh, Reason! who shall say what spells renew,
When least we look for it, thy broken clue;
Through what small vistas o'er the darkened brain
[quoting Father Oswald (1842)]
The intellectual daydream bursts again! But alas! the beam of intelligence was transitory, for, as we passed through the refectory, where some Chinamen were preparing supper, the wild shouts of this unhappy mortal fell upon our ears.Doctor Richard Scholes was the superintendent at the Woogaroo Asylum from 10 December 1881, until his death at home within the asylum precinct on 8 July 1898. Immediately prior to his term in the Woogaroo Asylum he had been the superintendent at the Callan Park (or Callan Creek) Asylum in Sydney.
WILD FLOWERS OF INSANITY
"There is something sacred about insanity," says a learned writer. "The traditions of every country agree in flinging a halo of mysterious distinction around the unfortunate individual stricken with so sad and so lonely a visitation." [quoting Kate Sanborn (1885) The Vanity and Insanity of Genius] Fiction is made weird and attractive by a maniacal character. "The grey hairs of King Lear," says a critic, "are silvered over with additional veneration when he raves; and the wild flower of insanity is the tenderest that decks the pure garland of Ophelia." [quoting Francis Sylvester Mahony (1836) The reliques of Father Prout] Dean Swift, who was lost in the wilderness of thought, before he sank into the grave, in his sensible days. "Willed the little wealth he had to build a house for people mad." [QUOTE] And the author of "The Scarlet Letter," in saying that " the founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as a site for a prison," [quoting Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) The Scarlet Letter] overlooked the melancholy fact that a portion is also generally required for a madhouse. Madness, however, is said to be of rare occurrence among rude and untutored nations. But Queensland, at any rate, has got its fill — 993 being at present on her register — and if we are losing any of that deferential homage paid to it in the ancient times, and replacing that homage with care and commiseration, we cannot be blamed.
THE CAUSES.
As we passed through the buildings I asked the Doctor if most of it was not caused through drink. "Well, no," he replied; "that is an erroneous idea. Look at the women. They are nearly as numerous as the men, and they are, on the whole, temperate and respectable people." Dr. Scholes is an authority on lunacy, and his opinion on this point is worthy of attention. On being pressed, he said that perhaps about 20 percent were the victims of drink, adding that many who suffer from delirium tremens never reach the asylum. From the returns published for 1888, I find that, of 260 persons admitted, the insanity of thirty three was caused by drink. The causes generally given are ambition, vanity, avarice, intemperance, and the fury of sexual passion; but we shall discuss these afterwards.
IN THE DORMITORIES.
We had now gained the upper rooms, and were inspecting the dormitories. Many of the rooms are large, but the accommodation for 490 males, in seven wards, is not sufficient, sixteen and seventeen beds being placed in some of the rooms. The floors are scrupulously clean, the sheets immaculately white, and the low iron bedsteads as comfortable as those to be found in the best boarding schools. Some of the patients, for an unknown reason, refuse to sleep on a bedstead, and are therefore accommodated in one room with beds upon the floor. Many of them frequently hide under all the bed clothes, to shield themselves from some imaginary enemies, who haunt them in their sleep. Patients suffering from convulsions are provided with beds on boards, having water-proof sheetings. Everything is of asylum make. Two or three warders pace, in the depth of night, the long hall which divides the dormitories in every ward, watching over the slumbering and uneasy victims of the evil genius of insanity. The dormitories throughout are splendidly ventilated, and the maniac, rising is his bed, in the first light of the morning, can, like Giovanni, in Hawthorne's tale, look upon a garden and scenery beautiful with luxuriant vegetation, the sun's rays gilding the dewdrops on the shrubs and flowering plants, and the Brisbane River, within a stones throw, coursing its way peacefully to the sea. Does this symbolic language, I wonder, serve, as it did the ill-fated Giovanni, to keep him, even for an instant, in communion with Nature?
HORRORS ON HORRORS’ HEWD
"This is the hospital ward," said the Doctor, as we entered another section of the grounds, and gazed on a large verandahed building. What a heart-rending spectacle presents itself! The place has a strange and melancholy hue. It reminds me of the sights which De Quincey saw in the most terrible of his opium dreams. [Referencing Thomas De Quincey (1821) Confessions of an opium-eater] Here is the miserable hypochondriac and the victim of gloomy insanity. Would you care to see the ugly Mongolian of everyday life a grinning idiot? Here he is, surrounded, too, by many of his Celestial brethren, "as mad as hatters," for there are not fewer than forty or fifty of them in the institution. And there are the idiot boys, whose intellectual orb has been forever dimmed, two looking as if they had emerged from the grave, or as if they were the victims of leprosy. Would that death put an end to their misery! On a seat by the wall are a number of men, oblivious of everything, dying in the last stages of consumption. Here is a young man whom the Doctor himself fed for months, by means of a tube, now quite fatuous. He is tall, and was, at one time, one of the smartest stockmen in the North. Dr. Scholes has done everything that he could think of to renew his life; he even went so far as to try Dr. Brown-Sequard's 'elixir. ' but the case is hopeless.
Doctor Brown-Sequard’s elixir was, if you were wondering, an extract of dog and guinea pig testicles that was administered by injection in the hope of improving vitality. He published his work in the Lancet of 1889 with the title “The effects produced on man by subcutaneous injection of a liquid obtained from the testicles of animals.”
A Spanish Manilla man, with fine features, paces the yard, talking wildly in the language of Castalar. What is he saying? Possibly it is, as usual, but "A tale told by an idiot, Full of noise and fury, signifying nothing." [quoting Walter Scott’s (1808) “The life of Dryden”] On a bed, on the verandah, was a handsome youth, who had lost his senses and the use of his limbs in an accident. Five men are confined to their beds, which are of curious make. A man looks after these patients all night, and some idea of the arduousness of his duties may be gleaned from the fact that the [sheets] have to be changed under each patient not fewer than twenty times, and as many as thirty and forty changes have to be made on some nights. In a section of another ward we found some patients playing billiards and other games, and, in going into the dormitory I noticed some refined and cultured men, who, from over-work or too much study, perhaps had passed into the regions of insane thought. Persons of this class are accommodated with small bedrooms on the upper floor. More than 50 percent of the patients admitted may be regarded as incurables.
A GLEAM OF HAPPINESS
The field outside, in which hay is made, was crowded with patients, most of them idling their time away, in a listless manner, for work, which goes on during the day — and the nature of which I will describe next week — had now ceased. Two or three hundred yards away was No. 6 ward. In passing through the grounds, one could not help stopping to gaze in admiration. The whole place is like a garden of Eden, and flourishes uninfluenced by its melancholy surroundings. The Doctor's appearance in the different wards was hailed with manifestations of the greatest joy; he knows the whims of every patient, calls them by their familiar names, and, wherever he went he threw a gleam of happiness around him, which was shared by the merry and melancholy alike. Such a breadth of human sympathy is rarely witnessed in a man with so much authority.
HOW THEY DINE.
It was now tea-time, and the patients were partaking of tea and bread and butter. The bread, which is made in the institution, being as far as I could judge of the very best quality. The "niggers" and Chinamen are not fed at the same table as the white patients. At other meals they have beef and potatoes, and porridge and bread and butter and tea. The knives, spoons, and forks are scrupulously clean, cleanliness throughout being one of the remarkable features of the institution. The patients addicted to bad habits are allowed only a spoon. One of the patients in this ward had two little pet birds, feeding, and tied near the table. When supper was over the patients indulged in a smoke, played billiards, cards, and dominoes, and afterwards retired to bed.
THE PECULIAR PEOPLE
Mr. W. P. Frith gives, in his delightful "Reminiscences," his experiences in lunatic asylums and accounts of his conversations with madmen, which are, in one light, extremely amusing. But there are some men in Woogaroo with ideas as strange as those entertained by any persons in the world. One man is gone on the "Divisity," another is the superintendent, and another a great lawyer who was about to give the Doctor a cheque for £1000. Some seemed intelligent enough at times, but, in a few minutes, they would get lost, and "The delicate chain Of thought, once tangled, could not clear again." [quoting Thomas Moore, probably from Fraser’s Magazine, Volume 10 (1834)]. One tall, wild-looking man reminded me of Yégof, the fool, in one of Erckmann-Chatrian's powerful novels. [Erckmann & Chatrain were collaborative novelists who wrote in French, Yegof appears in the titles of two works published in 1861 and 1862]
THE WOMEN'S WARDS
On approaching the women's ward, some three or four hundred yards away from the mens, I heard unearthly noises, as some of the more violent damsels were retiring to bed. There are 384 females accommodated in six wards. Some were old, haggard-looking creatures, on the brink of the grave. About ninety married females are admitted yearly.
THE TIES OF LOVE
The Doctor was surrounded on all sides. One young woman piteously asked to be allowed to send a telegram to her husband, and, on being informed that the patients were not permitted to send telegrams, asked for letter-paper and a pen and ink, with which the nurse was instructed to provide her. Then she begged permission to leave within a few days. "I feel better today, Doctor," she said pleadingly. "How long have you been here?" said the Doctor; and she answered, "Two days." The poor woman had evidently lost the faculty of memory. Another woman demanded also permission to go to her husband and a single girl asked, "When will the Toowoomba asylum be opened, Doctor?" "You don't surely want to go,” said Dr. Scholes, "and leave Tommy. You know you are to be married to Tommy." Who "Tommy" was I did not inquire, but the unfortunate girl held down her head coyly, the light sparkled in her eyes, and she said she would remain.
STRANGE CHARACTERS AND AMBITIONS
A big Irishwoman, like those to be seen in the streets of Dublin, asked for a "Christmas box." The Doctor said it was too late, now, for such presents, but he would give her one next year; when she replied, with a wild laugh, "I'd be dead entirely, sir, in a month, if I remained here till then!" An old grey headed lady — I do not reflect on her age — told me that the coaches were then being got ready, and that the clerks were just finishing up for the day. When we went outside, some twenty or thirty patients flocked around the Doctor, some to engage in a flirtation — a weakness for which is to be found even in the insane. Amongst them was a grown-up child — a big woman — with a dormant understanding, a bright vivacious little girl, who looked like a Spaniard, and who strongly protested against being called "Black Mary" in the presence of a stranger. A number of the woman sat motionless, and laughed with the wild vacant laugh of a female maniac. Most of the girls, however, appeared to be thoroughly happy.
MYSTERIOUS AND ROMANTIC
The night nurses were then coming on duty — most of them handsome and healthy-looking girls — and, after partaking of refreshments with the Doctor, I passed out of the asylum for the insane, and looked back, with a depressed mind, towards this great institution, and thought of the depth of mystery and romance which surrounded the 1000 unhappy mortals who rave in Woogaroo from one end of the year to another, and hundreds of whom are destined to go raving into the unseen world beyond the grave.
(to be continued.)
Queensland's Madmen, No. II.
WOOGAROO: ITS LIGHT AND SHADE.
[BY GIL BLAS.]
HOPELESSLY LOST.
"Yes," said Dr. Hogg, as we passed slowly along the gravelled walks that lead to the different wards, "more than one-half of those who enter Woogaroo are incurably insane." Xerxes, it is related, wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive in one hundred years afterwards. How much more cause has the stranger to weep, or feel sad and depressed, when, upon looking over this picturesque little colony, he considers that most of its wretched inhabitants are irrecoverably lost as the wild sea of insanity, "without sail and without steerage," as Dante expresses it? [Dante, The Divine Comedy]
WHENCE DO THEY COME?
But why have we such an agglomeration of human misery in Queensland -- a colony so young and so bountiful! "Seventeen per cent, of our lunatics are imported," said Dr. Scholes. What a fierce condemnation of our present immigration system is this I Ten percent of those admitted yearly are recent arrivals; others stagger on for a year, or perhaps more, when their minds fall into the inevitable wreck, and they are thenceforward "in wandering mazes lost." [probably quoting Milton, Paradise Lost] Many have been in asylums in the old country, and, upon partially recovering, they were "Sent afloat, With nothing but the sky for a greatcoat," [quoting The Reliques of Father Prout, 1836] and eventually they drifted into Woogaroo. Since the year 1809, up to the beginning of last year, 711 English, 218 Scotch, 899 Irish, and 282 Australians were admitted, 473 of the English and 471 of the Irish being males. Of the total (2800), 586 were labourers and 779 persons engaged in domestic duties (253 being servant.girls). Four hundred and twenty-five of the 925 patients remaining in the institution, at that time, were Protestants, and 327 Roman Catholics. Each patient costs the State £26 15s. 4d. annually.
THE ROOTS OF THE EVIL.
It is needless to say that much of the evil spirit has been inherited, for the hereditary influence has been recognised since the time of Aristotle and Herodotus "I inherited," said Dr. Johnson, "a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life-at least, not sober." [quoting Samuel Johnson, a quote found in a number medical journals of 1849, eg. The Lancet, or from Boswell’s 1799 biography of Johnson] And, in going through the asylum, you will meet father and son, mother and daughter, mother, daughter, and grand-daughter, brother and sister, and even husband and wife. Twenty percent, again, is caused by intemperance-outlandish drunkenness, so common in the colonies, which makes a man " His country's curse, his children's shame--Outcast of virtue, peace and fame;" [quoting Thomas Moore] and, in many cases, by over-work and over-study, individuals have been seen wandering into the regions of fantastic thought. "How often has splendid talent been its own executioner?' says old Prout, " and the best gift of heaven supplied the dart that bereft its possessor of all that maketh existence valuable !" [This quote could be from Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, Vol 10, 1834 … an article entitled he ‘Dean Swift’s Madness: a tale of Churn].
A PILGRIM FROM THE BLARNEY STONE.
As we went through the grounds, inspecting the industries, we came upon patients of different moods and temperaments. The light heart of the Irishman is not bowed down even by insanity. As a maniac, he is, as Madame de Boufflers, of "Les Miserables," would say, "a charming fool." In one place I met a low-sized Hibernian, with a spade on his shoulder, dancing to the air of a national song And here is a big, powerful man, whose face lights up as we approach him, and who salutes us in the sweet Irish brogue, which is as pure now as it was when he roamed on his native hills. He reminded me of the Shaughruan, in Boucicault's play. But "Don't hope to hinder him, Or to bewilder him; Sure he's a pilgrim From the Blarney Stone!" [This in an 1835 addition to an R. A. Milliken poem, Groves of the Blarney, by Francis Mahoney, or 'Father Prout'] And, as his memories gathered, he poured out, with a humorous touch, some of his reminiscences at that awful castle "where bats and badgers are forever bred." [Milliken, Groves of the Blarney] "How much of the Bible have you eaten now, Tom ?" asked the Doctor, at length. He assumed an air of gravity, and pulling out, from inside his shirt, a part of the Sacred Book, he replied, "Up to Jeremiah." Tom has been eating the Book, for a long time, at the rate of two pages a day, in accordance with what he conceives to be the Divine command to " read, mark, learn and inwardly digest." This is the pivot on which his mind twirls.
THE INDUSTRIES.
About half the patients in the institution are engaged at one occupation or another. Nearly 500 persons are, therefore, employed daily from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m., with the exception of an hour and a half for dinner. According to all authorities, specially-adapted physical exercises are necessary for the recovery of the insane. At first sight, Woogaroo appears like an ideal commonwealth. It has its tailoring establishment and large bakery, a store in which there are not fewer than 800 articles of different descriptions; a saw mill turning out all classes of timber; it's carpenters shops, doing work of every description, and three or four blacksmiths are working from one end of the year to the other. All the furniture necessary for the institution is made on the premises, the insane tradesmen being supervised, in each department, by one or two experienced men. The water is pumped, by the engine which works the saw-mill, from a dam on the grounds into a reservoir, whence it gravitates all over the institution.
DAIRYING, &C.
Woogaroo has a large number of dairy cows, so that all the milk--which is used for nourishing the maniacs-being under the immediate inspection of the doctors, is of the most reliable quality. The amount of disease conveyed to humanity by milk and its products is greater than is generally imagined. For instance, an outbreak of typhoid fever in England, a few months ago, was coincident and actually caused by a teat-eruption in the milch cows. Supervision in this respect is extremely necessary in Queensland. About 430lb. of butter is consumed, weekly, by the patients, which, however, is supplied from outside. Here, too, you can see the pure Ayr-shire breed of cattle, whose great merit is their peculiar fitness for the dairy. There is also to be seen a splendid collection of Berkshire pigs, which are fed on cooked food, chiefly the refuse of the tables.
THE CHALICE OF BITTERNESS.
Let us leave these, however, for the present. As we crossed the grounds, in order to inspect the other buildings, on the top of the hill, the conversation turned to the different phases of madness to be found in men. The distemper presents itself, of course, in various forms some violent and others mild. Many of the ancient philosophers held that all deviations from right reason were madness. The Doctor, who keeps a book in which the fantastic, demoniacal, and other ideas of the lunatics are recorded, related some instances which would make one's bones shake. Many of the maniacs fancy they hear "voices," like the great Joan of Arc, and forthwith they proceed to obey them. Despite the strict guard which is put upon them, some of the patients, on account of this, have ruined themselves for life. A German suffering from a religious mania drew the heart of a sinful man with animals and figures representing different vices, and a representation of hell, with the devil leading a woman to the entrance, and the woman attracting a man. "The chalice of bitterness, mixed for mankind, Must be quaffed by us all," says Lamartine, in one of his spirited poems; but what a draught some of these unhappy creatures must have taken to get drunk in unending woe!
PLEASING SPECTACLES
Entering one of the buildings, I found the Rev. J. A. Taylor, of Ipswich, conducting a service to a good and attentive congregation. Services are held regularly, the Protestant ministers and Roman Catholic priests visiting the institution frequently. The walls of the different wards are painted artistically - the work being done by the patients - and brightened by pictures, thickly hung, in Oxford frames - the work of the joiners. My gratification at the picturesque appearance of the grounds I expressed to the Doctor, who was not, of course, surprised. Before you, on all sides, are shrubs and flowering-plants of different varieties, and "All flowers that scent The sweet open air," set off with much of tile Italian richness of line and breadth of light and shadow. "The sense of oppression," says the Scripture, "maketh a man mad ;" but here the obedient lunatics, at any rate, are placed under little restriction, being allowed to wander over acres of ground, the surroundings of which are extremely healthy.
IN THE KITCHEN
After viewing a large vegetable-garden, in which Chinese and white men are employed, we entered the kitchen, which is fitted up with the latest appliances. A range of copper boilers, with innumerable taps, run along the right-hand side of the building. Every article of food is cooked in these, by steam, supplied, through invisible pipes, from two engines at the rear of the kitchen. Three ton of potatoes are cooked here every week. Boutham's "patent kitchener" is also fitted up, as well as an iron cupboard, heated with steam, for keeping dishes in a warm condition. Two paid cooks are in charge of this department, and they are assisted, of course, by a number of patients.
THE LAUNDRY AND THE SEWING ROOM.
Passing into the females' section, we entered the laundry, where some thirty or forty women were employed, working washing machines of every description, mangling-machines, &c.; all the machinery being driven by steam. Five hundred weight of soap, Mr. Broderick, the accountant, assured me, is used here weekly. The building is fitted up with a drying-closet, in which clothes are dried by artificial heat during wet weather. From forty to sixty women are engaged in the dress-making establishment, doing all descriptions of needlework.
A WRETCHED CONGREGATION.
Here are situated a number of female wards, the homes of harmless and decrepit patients. Did you ever see two or three hundred women together, whose intellects have been blighted, the light of whose mind is " Now gone; and never to be recalled again !" Perhaps not; the human being, when afflicted, is taken out of the busy crowd,and placed in what is virtually an unseen world, so that society may be allowed to live in peace. Hurrying from among them, and closing our ears against their wild importunities, the Doctor opens a gate, with his master-key, and before us, on a long verandah, paced by three or four nurses, are about sixty women, of all ages, despair sitting on their countenances, and the wild light of insanity sparkling in their eyes. They are some of the worst patients in the institution, the Doctor tells me. There are young girls, with down-cast faces, possessed with "Some secret and unfallowed vein of woe," whose sad thoughts are "full of fatal doom," and who would, if they were permitted, end their lives by suicide. But you do not want a full description, and, even if you did, I could not portray their agonising heart-throes, nor convey to you an idea of their wild shouts and frenzy,
THE HOSPITAL AND THE NURSES.
We then passed through the females' hospital, where six patients were confined to their beds, one poor woman having an infant a day old. The hospital is roomy and well venti-lated, the walls being adorned with pictures. Communication with the different wards and the doctors' quarters is obtained by telephone. On an average there is a nurse to every thirteen female patients. What a noble life these girls lead, with their white aprons, their bunches of keys, and their youthful faces beaming with kindness and sympathy for the victims of this terrible distemper! Victor Hugo rightly describes it as "the loftiest possible height of virtue." [Referencing Victor Hugo (1862) Les Miserables]
AN AWFUL SCENE.
"Let us pass through quietly," said the Doctor, as we entered the division where the maddest of all the female patients are confined. Glancing around, I observed women, black and white, walking about the place, some waving their hands and shouting wildly. "Infectious horror ran from face to face, And pale despair." We closed the gate, and, after spending on hour or so with Dr. Hogg and his most agreeable wife, and enjoying their princely hospitality, I left Woogaroo; but my thoughts returned to the last ward that I had visited, and the spectacle reminded me of the weary souls, in the "Divi Commedia." gathered together on the banks of the Acheron, cursing God and the authors of their being. [Referencing Dante’s Divine Comedy]
