lecturer on insanity at the RCPE; but he did not live to complete his term of office. He died at his official residence at Tipperlinn House in Morningside, Edinburgh, of oesophegeal cancer, on 18 April of that year. He is buried in Grange Cemetery in south Edinburgh. The grave stands on the east side of the main eastern path. Family He had married Sarah Macpherson, daughter of Major Macpherson of Ayr, and they had children. His children included Dr Frederick William Adolphus Skae (b.1842) also an expert in mental health. Works Skae published papers on 'The Treatment of Dipsomaniacs' in 1858, and on 'The Legal Relations of Insanity' (1861 and 1867). His major work was the 'Classification of the Various Forms of Insanity on a Rational and Practical Basis.' He made this topic the subject of an address which he delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on the occasion of his occupying the presidential chair of the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums (9 July 1863); and he further developed it in the Morisonian lectures on insanity, 1873. These lectures were completed and published posthumously by his pupil and successor, Thomas Smith Clouston. Skae's classification is founded upon what he called the 'Natural History of Insanity.' Instead of separating the insane into groups of maniacs, melancholiacs, and so on, Skae proposed that classification should be based on the underlying bodily condition of the patient—puerperal mania, traumatic mania, and so on. Skae's classification was not generally adopted. His definition of insanity was "a disease of the brain affecting the mind". References Attribution 1814 births 1873 deaths Alumni of the University of St Andrews Scottish medical writers Heads of psychiatric hospitals 19th-century Scottish medical doctors Scottish psychiatrists 19th-century Scottish writers