 Doctors in the 19th century were establishing themselves as arbiters of sanity but were reliant on subjective diagnoses and tended to equate insanity with eccentric or immoral behaviour.Public suspicion of their motives was also aroused by the profits that were made from private madhouses.In 1838, Richard Paternoster, a former civil servant in the East India Company, was discharged after 41 days in a London madhouse (William Finch's madhouse at Kensington House) having been detained following a disagreement with his father over money.