page_title: Kew Asylum
section_title: Diagnoses
hierarchical_section_title: Kew Asylum / Patients / Diagnoses
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance gates of Kew Asylum, Victoria, Australia. Circa 1880
context_page_description: Kew Lunatic Asylum is a decommissioned psychiatric hospital located between Princess Street and Yarra Boulevard in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Operational from 1871 to 1988, Kew was one of the largest asylums ever built in Australia. Later known as Willsmere, the complex of buildings were constructed between 1864 and 1872 to the design of architects G.W. Vivian and Frederick Kawerau of the Victorian Public Works Office to house the growing number of "lunatics", "inebriates", and "idiots" in the Colony of Victoria.
  The first purpose built asylum in the Colony of Victoria, Kew was also larger and more expensive than its sister asylums at Ararat and Beechworth. The asylum's buildings are typical examples of the Italianate architecture style which was popular in Victorian Melbourne. Designed to be elegant, beautiful, yet substantial, and to be viewed as "a magnificent asylum for the insane" with the aim of portraying Melbourne as a civilised and benevolent city whilst avoiding the jail-like appearance of other asylums. These aims were furthered by the use of low ha-ha walls and extensively landscaped grounds.
context_section_description: The diagnoses given to patients during Kew's first fifty years were the common ailments found in most lunatic asylums of the pre-Kraepelin era
  Delusional insanity
  Dementia
  Epilepsy
  General paralysis/paresis of the insane
  Idiocy
  Inebriation
  Melancholia
  Puerperal mania
  Some of these terms are still in use today, however they may now have different meanings. For example, from examining the notes on some of Kew's early "dementia" patients, it can be deduced that many were most likely suffering from what we now term severe depression, catatonia or schizophrenia.
caption: Entrance gates and gatehouse of Kew Asylum, c. 1880. The gate house was demolished and the gates moved to Victoria Park, Kew in the 1930s[29] or 1940s[26][39] to facilitate the straightening of Princess Street.[26]
exif: {}