Axel Munthe

Axel Munthe (1857 to 1949) was a Swedish-born physician and psychiatrist, best known as the author of The Story of San Michele, an autobiographical account of his life and work. He grew up in Sweden, attended medical school there, then studied medicine in Paris and opened his first practice in France, later spending most of his adult life in Italy. He often treated the poor without charge and risked his life on several occasions to offer medical help in times of war, disaster or plague. He was also an advocate of animal rights, buying land near his Italian home for a bird sanctuary and arguing for bans on painful traps. His writing is light-hearted memoir drawn from real experience, though it uses dramatic licence, so it is a record of how he told his life and not a clinical source. This entry records what he did and what he wrote; it is not medical advice.