John Langdon Down

Biography

Early life and education

Down was born in Torpoint, Cornwall, the youngest of seven children of the merchant Thomas Joseph Down. His father was originally from Derry in Ireland, and his mother, Hannah Haydon, from North Devon. His father was descended from an Irish family, his great-great-grandfather having been the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. John Down went to local schools including the Devonport Classical and Mathematical School.

At 14 he was apprenticed to his father, the village apothecary at Anthony St Jacob's. The vicar gave him a present of Arnott's Physics which made him determined to take up a scientific career. In 1846 he had a chance encounter with a girl who presented with what would later be called Down syndrome. This sparked his interest in becoming a doctor. At the age of 18, he went to London where he got a post working for a surgeon in the Whitechapel Road where he had to bleed patients, extract teeth, wash bottles and dispense drugs. Later he entered the pharmaceutical laboratory in Bloomsbury Square and won the prize for organic chemistry. He also met Michael Faraday and helped him with his work on gases. More than once he was called back to Torpoint to help his father in the business until the latter died in 1853.

Medical career

Early career

Down entered the Royal London Hospital as a student in 1853. One of his teachers was William John Little (of Little's disease). There he had a career distinguished by honours and gold medals and he qualified in 1856 at the Apothecaries Hall and the Royal College of Surgeons. In order to save money while in medical school, he stayed with his sister and her husband. While living with his sister, he met her sister-in-law, Mary Crellin, whom he later married in 1860. In 1858, he was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Earlswood Asylum in Surrey where he worked for 10 years.

Royal Earlswood Hospital

Down decided to transform Earlswood, a large institution which had its origins in two pioneering institutions set up in Highgate and Colchester, while he took his MB in London, won the gold medal in physiology and took his MRCP and MD degrees. He was elected Assistant Physician to the London Hospital and continued to live at Earlswood and practice there and in London.

Before Down and his wife, Mary, transformed Earlswood, it contained horrible conditions where patients were subject to corporal punishment, kept in dirty conditions, and unschooled. The duo banned punishment and replaced with kindness and rewards, the patients' dignity was valued and they were taught horse riding, gardening, crafts and elocution. Down restructured the administration of the Asylum and started a regimen of stimulation, good food, and occupational training.

Later career

After resigning from Earlswood, Down set up his own private home for those with developmental and intellectual disabilities at Normansfield, between Hampton Wick and Teddington. The home's first occupants were 18 mentally disabled children of upper-class members of the community such as lords and physicians. In the home, Down and his wife did their best to educate the children and exposed them to a wide variety of mentally stimulating activities. Normansfield was a success and eventually had to be expanded to house the growing number of its inhabitants. By 1876 the number of inhabitants in Normansfield had grown to 160.

Down also made contributions to medicine through his research and was the first person to publish a description of the Prader-Willi syndrome, which he called 'polysarcia'.

In 1887, he wrote the book Mental Affections of Childhood and Youth. It was published at the request of the Medical Society of London and was a transcript of three lectures along with fifteen papers Down published on mental defects. The book details his ideas and findings about several mental abnormalities such as Down syndrome and microcephaly and savant syndrome (naming it "idiot savantism"). It also contains his view on the leading thoughts and available literature on the subject. In the lectures and some of the papers, he also weighed in on what he believed were the potential causes of various mental disorders. A recurring theme was the influence of parental physical and mental health on their child's chances of being born with a mental disorder. He also explored how the obstetric practices of the time could have influenced postnatal health.

Down was a respected member of his community and was an elected member of the Middlesex County Council.

Death

Down died in the autumn of 1896 at the age of 67. His body was cremated and kept in Normansfield. After his death, people stood on the streets in respect as his funeral procession passed by. After his wife died, she was also cremated and their ashes were scattered together.