“Woman,  you  seem  to  want  to  create  a  disturbance”1   By Nicola  Goc  

“Paper  presented  at  FCRC  Seminar  May  2013.  This  paper  is  a  draft  the  author  is   continuing  to  develop  this  research.  For  any  queries  please  contact  the  author”

This is a paper by Nicola Goc who has researched in some detail the lives of women sent to the asylum at New Norfolk in the early to mid 1800’s.  It talks about treatments and conditions in the Colonies early history.

Some of the knowledge comes from Dr. G. Crabb’s collection of medical knowledge in the book, “The History of Lachlan Park”.

In this paper she explores the use of an “electric machine” which was used here at the Hospital before it was used and recorded in the history books for the well established English Hospitals.

Nicola Goc Madness 24 pages.

 This  paper  looks  at  the  concept  of  ‘resilience’  through  the  frame  of  ‘madness’.  It  draws   upon  primary  historical  documents,  namely  a  nineteenth  century     New  Norfolk  Lunatic Asylum  Casebook  HSD246/1/2  Female  (mental)  (Volume  No.  3),  and  secondary  sources   to  address  two  key  questions:  

1. Were  the  convict  women  admitted  to  New  Norfolk  Asylum  suffering  from   insanity/mania/amentia  as  a  result  of  hereditary  factors,  criminality,  moral  and  physical   degeneracy  and  a  low  social  status  –  or  was  their  mental  state  a  combination  of  factors   including  an  emotional  response  to  the  trauma  of  forced  migration?    

2. How  was  female  ‘insanity’  understood  and  managed  in  the  penal  and  medical   institutions  of  colonial  Van  Diemen’s  Land?