Axel Munthe as author The Story of San Michele entirely overshadows all other publications by Axel Munthe, although it includes much of what he had already written earlier. His very first publications covered a number of travel discourses which appeared in the Stockholm newspaper, Stockholms Dagblad, and which described his experiences of relief work during the cholera epidemic in Naples in 1884. These discourses came out in book form in Sweden in 1885, in England in 1887, and later in 1910 in Italy. Subsequently he wrote a number of other papers and short stories which were later collected and published: for example, Små Skizzer, published in Stockholm in 1888; Vagaries, London 1898; Memories and Vagaries, London 1908; Bref och Skizzer, Stockholm 1909; En gammal bok om manniskor och djur, Stockholm 1931; Vagabondaggio, Milan 1933; Ein altes Buch von Menschen und Tieren, Leipzig 1934, etc. Axel Munthe described his activities during the First World War as a physician in the British Red Cross in the book, Red Cross & Iron Cross, which was published in London in 1916. Axel Munthe, the Physician When Munthe received his medical degree in Paris in 1880 at the age of 23, he was the youngest Doctor of Medicine in Europe. His thesis was on the subject of gynaecology and obstetrics. Munthe had, however, been deeply impressed by the influential Professor Charcot in the field of neurology, and therefore already at an early stage was greatly interested in general diseases. In the same year he opened his first practice in Paris which was frequented mostly by members of the large Scandinavian colony of artists. He lived intermittently in Italy where he helped the catastrophe-stricken population (1880 on the island of Ischia, 1883 in Naples). In 1887 Axel Munthe left Paris and settled in Anacapri where he worked as general practitioner. In 1890 he opened a practice in Rome where he was consulted by foreign dignitaries resident in Rome, as well as by Italian patients. Dr. Munthe was appointed physician to the royal Swedish household to care for Crown Princess Victoria, later queen, from 1892 until her death in 1930. During the First World War Axel Munthe served as a physician in the British Red Cross at the front in France. Axel Munthe became a legendary physician who always gave free medical treatment to the poor. For some time he maintained a hospice for elderly, destitute people in a castle outside Rome. He was an outstanding psychologist who was extremely restrictive in prescribing treatment by drugs. The preferred forms of treatment prescribed by Munthe included hypnosis and therapy through music. CapriOnLine Network