History,Progress,andCurrentTreatmentofParkinsons.docVIP

History, Progress, and Current Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, 1817 – 2002 Presented to Parkinson’s Disease Support Group, Easter Seals, Oakland, California February 7, 2002 James Parkinson, a British physician, who was born in 1755 and died in 1828, was more known for his unpopular views of social reform than for what he later became famous for. He was anti-war, anti-military, believed in what today would be called socialism, supported civil disobedience, and did as much work with his hobbies, geology and paleontology, as he did with medicine. He was even implicated in a plot to assassinate King George III with a poisoned dart fired from a popgun, but he was later cleared of that charge. He studied Latin and Greek as a young man, and came to medicine by taking over his father’s job as a general practitioner in a suburb of London. He wrote a little-known paper on “The Nature and Cure of Gout” in 1805; but this was followed, in 1817 by his classical “Essay on the Shaking Palsy” which attached his name forever to this illness. He was, however, never honored for his astute observations; and there is not even a likeness of Dr. Parkinson available in this time. Dr. Parkinson, while observing people on the streets of London, noted that some suffered from a tremor which, along with muscle weakness, worsened with time. The Latin name for this condition was “Paralysis agitans”, or the “shaking palsy”; but with no standardized neurological examination available at that time, the symptom complex which is well-known today, was not understood in the early Nineteenth century. Despite the lack of a standardized method of diagnosis, however, one of the main features of the detection of this condition was established from the beginning; that of careful observation of the patient. It was not until the very late portion of the Nineteenth century that physicians began to understand the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. Pioneering work by such greats in anatomy