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    Shaking Palsy Essay
    Shaking Palsy Essay
    Shaking Palsy Essay
    Ebook51 pages44 minutes

    Shaking Palsy Essay

    By James Parkinson

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    About this ebook

    James Parkinson (1755–1824) was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist. He is most famous for his 1817 work, Shaking Palsy Essay in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson's disease by Jean-Martin Charcot.

    Parkinson was also interested in improving the general health and well-being of the population. He wrote several medical doctrines that exposed a similar zeal for the health and welfare of the people that was expressed by his political activism. He was a crusader for legal protection for the mentally ill, as well as their doctors and families.
    In 1812 Parkinson assisted his son with the first described case of appendicitis in English, and the first instance in which perforation was shown to be the cause of death.

    Parkinson was the first person to systematically describe six individuals with symptoms of the disease that bears his name. In his "Shaking Palsy Essay", he reported on three of his own patients and three persons who he saw in the street. He referred to the disease that would later bear his name as paralysis agitans, or shaking palsy. He distinguished between resting tremors and the tremors with motion. Jean-Martin Charcot coined the term "Parkinson's disease" some 60 years later.

    Parkinson erroneously predicted that the tremors in these patients were due to lesions in the cervical spinal cord.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Parkinson
    Release dateJul 16, 2015
    ISBN9786050388244
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      Book preview

      Shaking Palsy Essay - James Parkinson

      Shaking Palsy Essay

      by James Parkinson

      SHAKING PALSY ESSAY

      BY

      JAMES PARKINSON,

      MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      James Parkinson (1755–1824) was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist. He is most famous for his 1817 work, Shaking Palsy Essay in which he was the first to describe paralysis agitans, a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson's disease by Jean-Martin Charcot.

      In addition to his flourishing medical practice, Parkinson had an avid interest in geology and palaeontology, as well as the politics of the day.

      Parkinson was a strong advocate for the under-privileged, and an outspoken critic of the Pitt-government. His early career was marred by his being involved in a variety of social and revolutionary causes, and some historians think it most likely that he was a strong proponent for the French Revolution. He published nearly twenty political pamphlets in the post-French Revolution period, while Britain was in political chaos. Writing under his own name and his pseudonym Old Hubert, he called for radical social reforms and universal suffrage.

      Parkinson turned away from his tumultuous political career, and between 1799 and 1807 published several medical works, including a work on gout in 1805. He was also responsible for early writings on ruptured appendix in English medical literature.

      Parkinson was also interested in improving the general health and well-being of the population. He wrote several medical doctrines that exposed a similar zeal for the health and welfare of the people that was expressed by his political activism. He was a crusader for legal protection for the mentally ill, as well as their doctors and families.

      In 1812 Parkinson assisted his son with the first described case of appendicitis in English, and the first instance in which perforation was shown to be the cause of death.

      Parkinson was the first person to systematically describe six individuals with symptoms of the disease that bears his name. In his Shaking Palsy Essay, he reported on three of his own patients and three persons who he saw in the street. He referred to the disease that would later bear his name as paralysis agitans, or shaking palsy. He distinguished between resting tremors and the tremors with motion. Jean-Martin Charcot coined the term Parkinson's disease some 60 years later.

      Parkinson erroneously predicted that the tremors in these patients were due to lesions in the cervical spinal cord.

      ESSAY

      (First Published in 1817)

      PREFACE

      The advantages which have been derived from the caution with which hypothetical statements are admitted, are in no instance more obvious than in those sciences which more particularly belong to the healing art. It therefore is necessary, that some conciliatory explanation should be offered for the present publication: in which, it is acknowledged, that mere conjecture takes the place of experiment; and, that analogy is the substitute for anatomical examination, the only sure foundation for pathological knowledge.

      When, however, the nature of the subject, and the circumstances under which it has been here taken up, are considered, it is hoped that the offering of the following pages to the attention of the medical public, will not be severely censured. The disease, respecting which the present inquiry is made, is of a nature highly afflictive. Notwithstanding which, it has not yet obtained a place in the classification of nosologists; some have regarded its characteristic symptoms as distinct and different diseases, and others have given its name to diseases differing essentially from it; whilst the unhappy sufferer has considered it as an evil, from the domination of which he had no prospect of escape.

      The disease is of long duration: to connect, therefore, the symptoms which occur in its

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