John Langdon Down

John Langdon Haydon Down (1828 to 1896) was a British physician best known for his description of the genetic condition that carries his name, Down syndrome, which he classified in 1862. Born in Torpoint in Cornwall and apprenticed as a boy to his father the village apothecary, he trained in London, qualified in 1856 and in 1858 became Medical Superintendent of the Earlswood Asylum in Surrey. There he and his wife Mary replaced punishment with kindness, rewards, schooling and occupational training for the residents. After ten years he left to found his own private home for children with developmental and intellectual disabilities at Normansfield, which grew to about 160 residents by 1876. In 1866 he published the paper Observations on an Ethnic Classification of Idiots, whose racial typology later generations recognised as racist and which gave Down syndrome its old name. He also wrote Mental Affections of Childhood and Youth in 1887 and first described what is now called Prader-Willi syndrome. He is also remembered as an advocate for higher education and paid work for women.