Obituaries. 
29 
1915-16.] 
Dr Skae, as Physician Superintendent of the Royal Asylum, Morningside, 
Edinburgh. Here for thirty-five years he devoted himself to the study 
of insanity in all its aspects, and acquired a world-wide reputation as one 
of the greatest living authorities on the subject. As Lecturer on Insanity 
in the University of Edinburgh, he came in close touch with the students 
of that great medical school, and exercised a great influence amongst them. 
His clinical lectures on mental diseases passed through six editions, and 
his other books, which all bear upon the question of insanity and its 
treatment, enhanced his reputation as a physician of the highest order. 
He retired from his office as Superintendent of the Royal Asylum in 1908, 
and received the honour of knighthood from the King on the occasion of 
His Majesty’s visit to Edinburgh in 1911. 
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1875, 
and died on April 19, 1915. 
Archibald David Constable, LL.D., was born in Edinburgh in 1843. 
He studied at the Edinburgh Academy and at the Universities of St 
Andrews, Berlin, and Paris. In 1865 he became associated with his father 
in the printing firm of T. & A. Constable. His intimate knowledge of 
foreign languages, both classical and modern, and his large acquaintance 
and personal friendship with men and women of letters, enabled him to 
exert an important influence on the literary side of his business. His most 
important piece of literary work was the editing and translating for the 
Scottish History Society of Major’s History of Scotland, a work so full 
and scholarly that the University of St Andrews conferred upon him the 
honorary degree of LL.D. in 1895. 
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1872, 
and died on January 14, 1915. 
Sir James Donaldson, Kt., LL.D., born April 26, 1831, was educated 
at the Grammar School and University, Aberdeen, at the New College, 
London, and at the Berlin University. He was appointed Rector of the 
High School, Stirling, in 1854, but after two years settled in Edinburgh as 
Classical Master in the Royal High School. In 1866 he was appointed 
Rector, and during his fifteen years’ tenure of this office he gained a wide 
reputation by his publications on early Christian literature, The Apostolical 
Fathers. In 1881 he was appointed Professor of Humanity in Aberdeen 
University, and in 1886 was elected Vice-Chancellor and Principal of 
the University of St Andrews. 
He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1867, and 
communicated to the Transactions of the Society an erudite paper on 
