What is Toronto's Lunatic Asylum?

Not until the 1800s was there made any distinction, in Canada, between criminals and people with mental problems. Up until that time, criminals, the insane, and those who were in debt were all imprisoned together. This changed in 1841, when the first asylum for the insane was built in Toronto. Of the group of insane, the criminally insane were the most difficult to house. They disrupted the order and discipline of the penitentiary and required continual observation in the asylum. Females deemed criminally insane were even more difficult to deal with, since at the time, women were considered the gentle sex, so the definition of a criminally insane woman was a hard concept for the general public to accept.