Daniel Hack Tuke

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Daniel Hack Tuke
Born 19 April 1827
York, United Kingdom
Died 5 March 1895
London, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Occupation Physicain (Alienist)


Daniel Hack Tuke descendened from a long line of Quakers from the English city of York who were interested in the treatment of mental illness and concerned with those afflicted. His great-grandfather William Tuke and his grandfather Henry Tuke co-founded the York Retreat, which revolutionized the treatment of insane people with moral treatment. His father Samuel Tuke carried on the work of the York Retreat and reported on its methods and its results. Daniel's older brother James Hack Tuke (1819 - 1896) was the next overseer of the York Retreat. Daniel was the youngest son of Samuel Tuke and Priscilla Hack, his wife.

In 1845, Daniel Tuke entered the office of a solicitor at Bradford, but left in 1847 to begin work at the York Retreat. Entering St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850, he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1852, and graduated M.D. at Heidelberg in 1853. In 1858, in collaboration with John Charles Bucknill, he published a Manual of Psychological Medicine, which was for many years regarded as a standard work on Lunacy.

In 1853, he visited a number of foreign asylums, and later returning to York he became visiting physician to the York Retreat and the York Dispensary, lecturing also to the York School of Medicine on mental diseases. However, this was short lived; and in 1859 ill health obliged him to give up his work, and for the next fourteen years he lived at Falmouth. In 1875, he settled in London as a specialist in mental diseases. Five years later he became joint editor of the Journal of Mental Science.

In 1853, he married Esther Maria Stickney (d.1917). They had three children together. Dr. Tuke was buried at the Quaker Burial Ground, Saffron Walden.

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