Munthe, Axel Martin Fredrik (1857–1949)

Swedish author and doctor. The Story of San Michele 1929, one of the most remarkable best-selling books of memoirs, was originally written in English and translated into 44 languages. In The Story of San Michele, written during periods of insomnia, he told how he adopted the term ‘colitis’ as a reassuring name for the imaginary ailments of his fashionable patients of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

He was born in Oskarshamn and was educated at Uppsala University. He worked under Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière, but left after disagreeing with Charcot's theories on hypnotism. For 12 years he was a gynaecologist in the fashionable Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris, then enjoyed an equally lucrative practice in Rome before retiring to Capri where he wrote his successful memoirs. In Rome, where he lived in Keats's house, he eventually made enough money to build the villa of San Michele on the highest point of the island of Capri. Munthe was for some years physician to Queen Victoria of Sweden.