Being a Patient at Seacliff Lunatic Asylum

Being a Patient at Seacliff Lunatic Asylum

This Album contains the case records for selected patients.

For each patient there are Statutory Papers relating to their committal, admission, and discharge from Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. The Statutory Papers also contain the reports of two medical practitioners on the mental state of an individual.

The Medical Casebooks document the diagnosis and the patients' treatment. They contain biographical details about the individual, summaries of the reports of the two medical practitioners from the Statutory Papers, a psychiatric assessment, and notes on diagnosis and treatment. The Medical Casebooks also include a questionnaire completed by the patient's relatives describing their life history, behaviour, etc.

Many Medical Casebooks include photographs of patients. It is likely that some of the photographs were taken by Frederic Truby King. It isn't entirely clear if the photographs were taken for identification purposes only, or if they were used for diagnostic purposes also.

More information

The book, Unfortunate Folk: Essays on Mental Health Treatment 1863-1992, edited by Barbara Brookes and Jane Thomson (published by the University of Otago Press, 2001) documents in more depth aspects of the history of mental health treatment in the Otago Region.

More information about Archives New Zealand's holdings relating to mental health is in our Mental Health Research Guide and our ARCHWAY database.

Restrictions

Please note that information about patients who were at Dunedin Lunatic Asylsum, Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, Seacliff Mental Hospital and Cherry Farm Hospital is restricted for 100 years. Researchers will require permission from the Southern District Health Board to see any information about patients which is less than 100 years old.