Until 1866, mental patients in Hokitika shared the Hokitika jail with the criminals. A new hospital with provision for up to seven ‘lunatics’ was built at South Spit in 1866, but had become overcrowded by 1867 and the overflow of patients was sent to Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum in Christchurch. The provincial government stood the charge of about £1 per week per patient, plus £6 10s coach fare for patient and escort.
Once Westland acquired self-government in 1868 the arrangement was terminated and the overflow of mental patients was once again sent to the jail. In 1870 the jail was gazetted as a lunatic asylum to avoid the charge that mental patients were being illegally detained there. This situation continued until Seaview Mental Asylum was built in 1872.
Hugh Gribben was appointed superintendent, and his wife became matron, as was the usual practice at that time. They remained at Seaview until his retirement in 1904.
Seaview Terrace, where the asylum still stands but is no longer used, became known as Misery Hill: the home of the dead, the mad and the bad, as the cemetery, the asylum and the jail were all within a stone’s throw.
The Golden Age Hotel was situated in Revell Street, Hokitika. Minnie Cullen is a fictional character. Its real proprietor at the time this novel is set was Maria Hall, an astute and well-respected businesswoman.
It is believed the first item ever to be printed in English in New Zealand was a poster advertising a temperance meeting in 1834. Printed on a press set up at the Church of England Mission Station at Paihia, Bay of Islands, it requested ‘The attendance of all Persons desirous of promoting Peace, Order, and Sobriety’. Individual temperance societies and teetotal groups were created in various towns many years before the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was formed in New Zealand in 1885, two years after the union’s world launch. Although the fictional scene featuring a temperance group in A Secret Mind takes place in 1884, I have no doubt Miss Bignall, the first superintendent of the WCTU in Hokitika, would have led the march down Revell Street had she known of it.
Epilepsy has always been with us. The ancient Babylonians thought the seizures were caused by demons attacking the sufferer. The Romans claimed it was contagious and could be caught by touching or being breathed upon by a person with epilepsy. Offending the moon goddess Selene would bring on the condition, according to the ancient Greeks. One of their cures advocated eating mistletoe that had been picked without using a sickle or blade during the time the moon was in its smallest phase — though this apparently did not work if the mistletoe touched the ground.
It was the Greek physician Hippocrates who recognised that epilepsy was a disorder of the brain rather than a result of the curses of the gods, but various superstitions persisted for centuries. A handbook written by two Dominican friars in 1494 claimed that seizures identified the person as a witch. This led to the persecution, torture and deaths of over 200,000 women. Known as ‘the falling sickness’ in the Middle Ages, epilepsy frequently drove sufferers to look to saints and relics for cures. A special blessed ring was thought to help control seizures. This idea persisted until well into colonial American times, when George Washington’s daughter, Patsy, an epileptic, was given an iron ring by her doctor.
Even when some enlightenment prevailed, epilepsy was still believed to be contagious, and sufferers were confined in mental hospitals, where they were kept separate from other patients. They were also discouraged from marrying and having children. Treatments included purgatives, enemas and setons. This latter treatment was still used in some mental institutions in the late 1800s. Bromides were also used at that time. Although they had nasty side-effects, they did help lessen the severity and frequency of some people’s seizures.
Today our modern drugs can control, though not cure, epilepsy, and with regular medication those affected can lead normal lives.