title: The royal derwent hospital in tasmania: historical perspectives on the meaning of community psychiatry.
abstract: Throughout the history of the hospital, local social institutions, formal and informal, tended to perform casualty and receiving functions so that the Royal Derwent has always served as institution of last resort. Case books show that both illnesses and treatment conformed to those familiar elsewhere in the British Empire and developed no local perculiarities. The records provide epidemiological evidence of a dramatic decline in incidence of first admission for psychosis after the period when convict transportation created a high rate of social dependency.
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D003158:Community Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006760:Hospitalization; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D008404:Massachusetts; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics / Q000266:history; D011329:Prisoners; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history