Joseph Workman

Workman, Joseph

Joseph Workman, psychiatrist, educator (b near Lisburn, Ire 26 May 1805; d at Toronto 15 Apr 1894). He immigrated to Montréal in 1829 and received his MD from McGill in 1835. For a time he ran a successful hardware business in Toronto, but in 1846 he accepted an invitation to teach at Dr John ROLPH's Toronto medical school, lecturing first on midwifery and later on materia medica. After resigning in 1853, he was appointed medical superintendent of the newly opened Provincial Lunatic Asylum in Toronto, a position he retained until his retirement in 1875. Workman was the author of numerous papers on insanity, its etiology and treatment, and he often appeared as an expert witness at criminal trials. He was undoubtedly Canada's most distinguished and able mid-19th-century alienist, a fact recognized by his colleagues, to whom he was known affectionately as "the Nestor of Canadian alienists."