Defining and diagnosing intellectual disability in New South Wales 1898 to 1923

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During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, physicians, under the auspices of State interventionist policies, played a crucial role in mobilising large numbers of people deemed to be “insane” or “mentally enfeebled” into congregate facilities. During the years 1898 to 1923, 1,459 patients were admitted to the Hospital for the Insane Asylum, Newcastle, Australia, and the surviving 1,220 medical records provide the data for this study on attempts to define and diagnose intellectual disability in New South Wales during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Diagnosis of those deemed to be mentally enfeebled was influenced not only by contemporary medical knowledge but also by factors which fell outside of the dominant medical paradigm such as the drive to both control and to institutionalise deviance.