Down, John L. H.

Abstract

Down was his father’s Irish family name; his grandfather was the Protestant Bishop of Derry. His mother’s family, the Langdons, came from Cornwall to Devon. Down helped his father, who was a pharmacist. At the age of 19 he enrolled as a student at the Pharmaceutical Society of London. In 1849 he became assistant to Professor Redwood and subsequently to Faraday. For 3 years he was ill and recuperated in Dartmoor. At the age of 25 he entered medical school at the London Hospital and graduated in 1858. He became a resident physician and superintendent of the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots and was elected assistant physician to the London Hospital in 1859.