Lunacy Act 1845 USA and Similar Legislation in Canada in 1839-1850

USA

 The Lunacy Act 1845 or the Lunatics Act 1845 and the County Asylums Act 1845 formed mental health law in England and Wales from 1845 to 1890. The Lunacy Act's most important provision was a change in the status of mentally ill people to patients.

Under the Lunacy Act 1845 and the County Asylums Act of the same year, county lunatic asylums became compulsory and the Lunacy Commission was established to take responsibility, among other things, to regulate them. 

The two acts were dependent on each other. The Lunacy Act established the Lunacy Commission and the County Asylums Act set forth most of the provisions as to what was to be monitored within the asylums and helped establish the public network of the county asylums.

Records of lunatic asylums are not held in any one place and often not all their records have survived. Many records of asylums, prisons and houses of correction are kept in local archives and especially those of the patients and inmates. However, most patient files have been destroyed.

The records held by The National Archives relate mainly to the administration of the institutions, though some of these records may include the names of inmates.

1839. The Ontario government (then known as the Province of Upper Canada) passes "An Act to Authorise the Erection of an Asylum within this Province for the Reception of Insane and Lunatic Persons."

This legislation resulted in the opening of the "Provincial Lunatic Asylum" in Toronto, Ontario, on January 26, 1850 (www.archivescanada.ca

Canadian Constitution Act gives federal parliament legislative authority over "Indians, and Lands reserved for Indians"

First proto-eugenics articles by Francis Galton in MacMillan's Magazine

First proto-eugenics articles by Francis Galton in MacMillan's Magazine

Canadian Constitution Act gives federal parliament legislative authority over "Indians, and Lands reserved for Indians"

1873 British Columbia’s first legislation addressing mental illness, the Insane Asylums Act, was passed by the provincial legislature in 1873. According to this Act, persons deemed to be “lunatics” could be committed to an insane asylum upon certificates issued by doctors who examined the patient in each other’s presence.

What is the simple definition of eugenics?

Eugenics the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the populations' genetic composition. Population cleansing. Hitler was practicing it..

Since I just finished reading the book Man the Unknown by Alexis Carrel written in 1934, it is worth mentioning that he was promoter of eugenics. He worked since1906,  the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York where he spent the rest of his career.

Alexis Carrel 1873-1944a French surgeon and biologist who spent most of his scientific career in the United States. He is known for his leading role in implementing eugenic policies in Vichy France.