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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 9 (December 1, 1936)

Sir Truby's Early Career

Sir Truby's Early Career.

New Zealanders are proud to remember that this great and wonderful man is a native son. He was born in New Plymouth in 1858, the son of Mr. Thomas King, a bank manager. Young Frederick Truby worked in the uninspiring field of figures for some years, but fortunately for his country he was attracted by the doctor's profession, and when he was twenty-two he went to Edinburgh to study medicine. There he found his place and his soul. He was a distinguished student, he graduated as a doctor and took his B.Sc. degree. The study of public health also engaged him. After graduating he spent some time in gaining experience in private practice as well as in hospitals, before returning to New Zealand in 1888. In Edinburgh he married Isabella Millar—the late Lady King. The care of the insane was one of his most absorbing studies, and for a year he was surgeon superintendent of the Mental Hospital at Porirua. Then the Government appointed him to take charge of the large hospital for the insane at Seacliff, on the Otago Coast, and there he spent many years, afterwards becoming Director-General of Mental Hospitals in the Dominion. He also was a lecturer and professor at Otago University.

The enthusiastic young doctor instituted many reforms at Seacliff, in the more rational treatment of the mentally afflicted. He made a great success of the large farm and orchards belonging to the Hospital, and he bred stock on scientific principles. It was in this asylum that he realised how closely mental trouble was associated with early malnutrition, and his study of cause and effect set him experimenting with the rearing of infants. That was the beginning of his long and increasingly useful efforts for the improvement of the human stock from babyhood.