PERINATAL LESSONS FROM THE PAST Dr Langdon Down (1828-1896) and 'mongolism'

John Langdon Down was born at Torpoint in Cornwall in 1828. After local schooling he .:: .!.i:.. became apprenticed at the age of 14 for four ;.i.l.l years to his father, a local apothecary. Then, wishing to become a scientist, in 1846 he entered a laboratory of the Pharmaceutical Society in London. There he won a prize for organic chemistry and also came into contact with 2A! Michael Faraday. In 1853 his father died and he decided to take up medicine, entering the London Hospital at the age of 25 and qualifying -7s five years later with many honours and prizes including the gold medal for physiology. In 1858 he was appointed Medical Superintendent 4 of the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots at Redhill in Surrey, a position he retained for 10 years before establishing his own institution for mentally retarded children, Normansfield, at Teddington. Within a year of qualifying he had obtained both the MRCP and MD, and had been elected to the staff of the London Hospital as a physician. There he taught therapeutics and medicine, and his humanity and care for the mentally retarded brought him a large private practice. Down did not write a great deal but is eponymously remembered for his classic description of mongolism in a short essay in 1866,1 from which the following extracts are Dr John Langdon Don (1828-96). taken: