John Langdon Down
| John Langdon Down | |
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_by_Sydney_Hodges.jpg)
Portrait of John Langdon Down
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| Born |
John Langdon Haydon Down 18 November 1828 Torpoint, Cornwall, UK |
| Died | 7 October 1896 (aged 67) Teddington, Middlesex, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Medical doctor |
| Known for | First to describe Down syndrome |
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John Langdon Haydon Down, DS (18 November 1828 – 7 October 1896), was a British physician best known for his description of a relatively common genetic disorder, now known as Down syndrome, which he originally classified in 1862.
Down was born in Torpoint, Cornwall. His father was originally from Derry in Northern Ireland, and his mother, Hannah Haydon, from North Devon. His father was descended from an Irish family, his great-great grandfather having been the Catholic Bishop of Derry. His sister's daughters eventually married into the Adrian, Darwin, and Keynes families. 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. 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 he died in 1853. Down would have liked a career in science but in those days there were few prospects for a career in chemistry.
Instead, he decided to take up medicine, entering the Royal London Hospital as a student in 1853. 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 1858, he was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots in Surrey. People were astonished that he should wish to pursue a career working in the neglected and despised field of idiocy. He had been one of the outstanding students of his time with every prospect of election to the staff of the London Hospital. He had been enthusiastic about hearing of an experimental school in Switzerland but on visiting it found the inmates neglected and the Patron of the school living it up in the West End of London.
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