Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870–1940 by Geoffrey Reaume (review)

400 The Canadian Historical Review homes to the countryside. She briefly notes that this measure might have been 'a thinly veiled resettlement scheme to control a growing urban proletariat,' but never asks whose children were 'relocated,' how, and by whom. Furthermore, she adopts a rather uncritical view of scientific medicine, contrasting the 'heady enthusiasm and idealism of the social reform era' with the systematic application of expertise after the First World War - as if'science' did not create idealists and zealots. Mccuaig tries to redress these sorts of problems in chapter 9, where she engages with historiographical debates regarding the relationship among health, healthcare, and culture, but her discussion is less than satisfying. While she acknowledges that those involved in the anti-TB campaign represented 'a special interest group with their own personal agenda for influence and authority,' she fails to explicate - here or elsewhere - the nature or impact ofpersonal and professional biases. At its best, this book provides a wonderful bedside view ofthe Canadian campaign against tuberculosis and, as such, represents a valuable point ofdeparture for those interested in the social history ofdisease. We can only hope, as Mccuaig herselfdoes, 'that future historians will tackle this subject again and again,' fleshing out the personal experiences and social tensions that have shaped the management ofTB in Canada. BARBARA CLOW York University Remembrance ofPatients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940. GEOFFREY REAUME. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press 2000. Pp. xii, 362, illus. $22.95 Much has been written about the history and politics of asylums, but very little about the patients themselves. Geoffrey Reaume's book, however, is a brilliant contribution to the literature on patient life in an institution. Based on archival files on 431 patients admitted to the Toronto Hospital for the Insane (now the Queen Street Mental Health Centre), Reaume selected 197 mainly chronic patients about whose lives he could write in some detail. One of the most striking personages Reaume describes is 'Angel Queen xm,' admitted to the Toronto Hospital for the Insane at the age of forty-nine and dying there thirty years later. During her three decades in the institution, Angel Queen made clothes and banners, dressing herself fantastically in an array of 'bracelets, chains, crosses and crowns.' Because she had access to outside financial assistance and caring relatives, Angel Queen was well supplied with material for her sewing as well as food. Thus, because ofher force ofcharacter, sewing and dress- Book Reviews 401 making skills, and outside help, Angel Queen was regarded with indulgence and some affection by the institutional staff. Reaume also writes about resistance within the institution. The most obvious act ofresistance was an escape attempt, but Reaume also notes patients who refused to talk to doctors or who, in the case ofArnold S, nearly succeeded in organizing a mutiny. Angel Queen's ability to realize her fantasies with no opposition from the authorities illustrates the point made some time ago by Patricia Allderidge in her article on Bedlam - that many historians and social scientists have described early asylums in stereotypical terms and ignored or glossed over the highly complex, loosely structured, and dynamic character of institutional life. And acts of resistance, big and small, illustrate that institutional authority never went unchallenged. Indeed, Reaume argues forcefully against critics like Gerald Grob, who try to mitigate staff brutality by making 'blanket statements' about violent and dangerous patients. Reaume points out that while staffmay have worked long hours for low pay, patients often worked in the asylum for no pay at all, while, unlike staff, they did not return home at the end oftheir shifts. 'Whatever frustrations the staffhad to deal with need to be contrasted with the frustration ofpatients, most ofwhom were kept on locked, overcrowded and unsanitary wards, unable to avoid a staff member who harassed or abused them .... Historians need to consider just why itis that when patients are recorded as abusive, no excuses for them are offered, but when staff members are accused of abuse, researchers such as Dwyer and Grob go out of their way to qualify and rationalize their conduct.' By elaborating on the rich texture of asylum life, Reaume questions...