• HOME
• THE LANGUAGE OF MADNESS
• THE ASYLUM
• • Asylum Design
  • Patient Buildings
• SOCIETY
• • Urban & Rural Life
  • Class & Gender
  • The Hysterical Female
  • The Evils of "Self-Abuse"
  • Family
  • Visitors
• LEGISLATION
• • Legislative Influence
  • Origins of Legislation and the Criminality of Insanity
  • Teenaged Years: Marked Custody Transition
  • Turn of the Century: Voluntary Admissions
  • Updated Act: The Mental Hospital Act
• SUPERINTENDANTS
• STAFF
• • Working at the LAI
  • Hiring Practices
  • Rules for Employees
  • Employee Roles in Moral Therapy
  • Doctors at LAI
  • Doctor Connections to UWO
  • Training School for Nurses
  • Attendants
  • General Staff
• PATIENT PERSPECTIVES
• • Introduction
  • Patient Art
  • Patient Letters
  • Their Voice
• MEDICAL TREATMENTS
• • Medical Treatment Introduction
  • Use of Restraints
  • Drug and Alcohol
  • Hydrotherapy
  • Female Surgeries
  • Neurosyphilis
  • Shock Therapy
  • Lobotomies
• MORAL THERAPY
• • Moral Therapy Introduction
  • Labour
  • Amusements
  • Diet
  • Religion
• THE WORLD WARS
• • Before the First World War
  • During the First World War
  • After the First World War
  • The First World War and the LAI
  • First World War Veterans at the LAI
  • The Second World War
• MEMORIES OF RMHCL
• • Introduction
  • Their Memories

Dr. Fulton Schuyler Vrooman 1930-1934

Dr. Vrooman, son of Dr. Adam Vrooman, a well-known medical practitioner in Little Britain, Ontario, earned his medical degree at the University of Toronto in 1904. He worked as ship's physician before starting a practice of his own in Lindsay, Ontario. In 1907, he entered the Ontario psychiatric service and worked in the Ontario Hospitals at London, Toronto, Mimico and Brockville. His background in general practice complimented his interest in psychiatry and he became known as a careful and painstaking physician, trusted as an internist and as a psychiatrist.

In the First World War, Dr. Vrooman volunteered for service, and spent time at the Military Hospital at Coburg, and in hospitals in England. He returned to the Ontario Hospital in Brockville as assistant superintendent in 1920, later transferring to the Ontario Hospital at Toronto and becoming superintendent there. He was superintendent at Mimico and the Ontario Hospital in London. In 1930 he became president of the Ontario Neuro-Psychiatric Association and for several years was the editor of the Ontario Journal of Neuro-Psychiatry. Considered both a student and a teacher, he showed particular interest in the education of nurses and junior physicians. During his career, Dr. Vrooman was in charge of three large hospitals. Remembered as a convincing speaker and a brilliant conversationalist, the various demands of his career and the consideration he gave to his work were attributed to his early death while superintendent at the Ontario Hospital for the Mentally Ill in London.

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