The Professor And The Madman

William Chester Minor was born in 1834 in Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. His parents were Congregational Church missionaries, and his family was first-line American aristocracy. In 1863, Minor graduated from Yale Medical School with a degree and specialization in comparative anatomy. After joining the army as a surgeon, Minor served in Virginia with Union forces during the Civil War. There, he was present at the incredibly bloody Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. He was forced to brand a fellow soldier with a hot iron as a punishment for desertion, a traumatic act that may have been a trigger for his latent psychological problems. Nevertheless, Minor moved up the ranks of the U.S. Army and was granted a commission.

Minor mental health deteriorated into paranoia and extreme sexual promiscuity, eventually leading the army to make the determination that he should be retired and institutionalized for 18 months. Afterwards, Minor departed for London in 1871. A few months later, while in the midst of a paranoid delusion, Minor shot and killed George Merrett. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, he was sentenced to be confined at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

In the early 1880s, Minor found a brochure calling for volunteers to help with the creation of what would become the OED.