The man behind the eponym described

The life of the 18th century physician James Parkinson was dedicated to politics, geology and writing - not to defining the disease that takes his name.In an article in The Lancet, Drs Burch and Sheerin describe the life of James Parkinson - a man who was not only a physician but also a political activist, a keen geologist and a writer. The article also gives an overview of the nature of Parkinson's disease, its causes, pathophysiology and treatment.Dr James Parkinson was born in the middle of the 18th century and was the second of four generations of surgeon-apothecaries. Although it's a logical assumption that he devoted his life to defining the movement disorder bearing his name, his passion was not for medicine but for politics and geology. In fact, it wasn't until he was in his 60's that he published "An essay on shaking palsy", describing six cases of the disease that he had observed.Describing one case of shaking palsy, he wrote, "The agitation of the limbs, and indeed of the head and of the whole body, was too vehement to allow it to be designated as trembling. He was entirely unable to walk; the body being so bowed, and the head thrown so forward, as to oblige him to go on a continued run, and to employ his stick every five of six steps to force him more into an upright posture, by projecting the point of it with great force against the pavement."Dr Parkinson's work remained relatively unnoticed until a Parisian physician, Jean-Martin Charcot, came across it half a century later. The authors say, "Although Parkinson's description had been incomplete (making no note of rigidity or of a Parkinsonian mask, for example), Charcot was convinced that the Englishman had been a crucial pioneer." The Frenchman described the condition as "maladie de Parkinson".Reference...