In 1876, Dr. Richard Bucke, the initial Medical Superintendent of the Hamilton Asylum for the Insane, submitted the very first Annual Report to the Inspector of Asylums and Prisons. In these excerpts, Bucke accounts for the 211 patients in his care, where they came from, and the 6 deaths that took place during the year.

Bucke goes on to boast about the health of the Asylum. He states, “we have great reason to congratulate ourselves upon the health of this establishment so far.” “A very large proportion of our patients have improved in body or mind or both since coming here, and some very markedly. This improvement is not due to the use of stimulants, of which they get very little, nor to medicines of which they are given still less, but entirely to the healthfulness of the situation, aided by a somewhat more liberal diet than I think they had been used to in the other asylums from which they came.”

(Full report available in Google Books)