Much of the study completed on psychiatry's treatment of women, has understandably, focused on periods when the profession was particularly interested in female insanity. This article examines the asylum lives of women when their treatment was not of particular interest. During the 10-year period that Dr. Charles Edward Doherty was head of British Columbia's Provincial Hospital for the Insane, women were excluded from the reforms that characterized his tenure. Instead, women's experiences were shaped largely by the care of nurses and the atmosphere of the ward itself. On the ward, nurses and patients interacted to interpret asylum policy. In the absence of directed intervention, the informal psychiatry of ward life is clearly visible through the case files of patients, and is shown to be as shaped by patient resistance, compliance, and influence as it was by the dictates of the medical superintendent.

ISSN 0823-2105

© 2012 Canadian Society for the History of Medicine/
    Société canadienne d'histoire de la médecine