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Dr James Parkinson

[11 Apr, 1755 - 21 Dec, 1824]

Dr James Parkinson was born in London on 11th April, 1755. The son of John Parkinson, an apothecary and surgeon practicing in Hoxton Square, London, James' early education was in Latin, Greek, natural philosophy and shorthand which he considered as proper basic tools for a physician. Where James studied is not known, but in 1784 his name appeared on a list of surgeons approved by the Corporation of London.

On May 21, 1783, he married Mary Dale of Hoxton Square; they had six children. James eventually succeeded his father in his practice in Hoxton Square. His medical practice flourished and during this period he became interested in geology and palaeontology.

A strong advocate of the underprivileged, Parkinson's early career was overshadowed by his involvement in a variety of social and revolutionary causes.

Between 1799 and 1807 Parkinson published numerous small medical works of particular interest to the profession. These included a work on gout in 1895 and a report on a perforated and gangrenous appendix with peritonitis in 1812. The latter is probably the earliest description of that condition in the English medical literature.

In 1799 a work called Medical Admonitions was also published. It was the first in a series of popular medical works by Parkinson aimed toward the improvement of the general health and well-being of the population. It is likely that these works represented a continuation of the same zeal for the welfare of the people that was expressed by his political activism. His humanitarianism appeared again in 1811, when he crusaded for better safeguards in regulating madhouses and for legal protection for the mental patients, their keepers, doctors, and families.

In 1817, in observing people passing his window, and from information from his own patients, he wrote 'An Essay on the Shaking Palsy'. In this short essay Parkinson established the disease as a clinical entity. Sorting through a variety of palsied conditions, which he had observed throughout his career, Parkinson gave the classic, albeit in modern terms limited, clinical description of the illness: "Involuntary tremulous motion, with lessened muscular power, in parts not in action and even when supported; with a propensity to bend the trunk forwards, and to pass from a walking to a running pace: the senses and intellect being uninjured."

Four decades later Jean-Martin Charcot added rigidity to Parkinson's excellent clinical description and attached the name Parkinson's disease to the syndrome.

Although Parkinson's disease is one of the best known medical eponyms, Parkinson himself received little attention from his English-speaking colleagues, until an article written by the American J. G. Rowntree in 1912 appeared in volume 23 of the Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, titled: "English born, English bred, forgotten by the English and the world at large, such was the fate of James Parkinson".

James Parkinson died in Kingsland Road on December 21, 1824. His son, J. W. K. Parkinson practiced medicine in Hoxton and later in Islington near London. He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.