The first mental institution in Canada was a converted cholera hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick. It appears in this 1839 painting (the only surviving view) to the rear and right of the Centenary Church. This small, wooden building opened its doors in February 1836 when fourteen mental patients were transferred from the local almshouse and the jail. They shared the accommodation with an equal number of sick paupers. Creation of separate quarters for the mentally disturbed came about largely at the insistence of Dr. George Peters who was appalled at the neglect and mistreatment of the insane occupants of the jail and almshouse. As it turned out, the cholera hospital was not much better; equal numbers of sick paupers and lunatics mingled freely, and the building was too crowded to allow treatment of any kind. Nevertheless, this tiny asylum, inadequate as it was, marked an important change in the treatment of the insane in British North America. The mentally ill had been recognized as a group distinct from the simply violent or criminal who required a specific kind of supervision in a specific kind of institution.
