Professional identity, prestige and the side hustles of lunacy doctors in New South Wales, 1879–1898

Abstract

This article uses the New South Wales Lunacy Department between 1879 and 1898 as a case study to analyse the professional identity of doctors in colonial Australia. Various scholars have suggested that British and American lunacy doctors were secretive, anti-social, and out of step with the latest ideas in medical treatment. I argue that in NSW between 1879 and 1898 asylum physicians willingly engaged in the performance of masculine, middle-class roles, outside the asylum walls, to maintain their medical authority and social status in colonial Sydney.