Making the modern medical school: the Wisconsin stories

Reaume, more so than Connor, explores how class and money played an essential role in shaping patients' experiences, with wealth cushioning certain patients from what he sees as the cruel nature of the hospital. Far less effort is made to explain how psychiatric ideas changed during this period, or how this affected the lives of the patients. For Reaume this is because the medical context can only ever be a limited part of the picture. Overall, his account tells us much about patients' experiences of life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane but in a way that is almost static, suggesting that little changed between 1870 and 1940. Together, Connor and Reaume provide valuable insights into the workings of two important Toronto hospitals and demonstrate the merits of institutional and patient biography.