Aspects of the history of Parkinson's disease.

Before James Parkinson's classic' "An Essay on the Shaking Palsy" (1817) ancient books recorded many types of paralytic disorders and tremors. None fully described the distinctive features of the syndrome which so justly perpetuates Parkinson's name. His essay (fig 1) mentioned the earlier writings of Juncker who distinguished tremors, either "Activesudden affections of the mind, terror, anger or, Passive -dependant on debilitating causes such as advanced age, palsy etc." He credited Sylvius de la Boe for showing the important difference between rest (tremor coactus) and action tremor in 1680. Parkinson cites Sauvages "the tremulous parts leap, and as it wereL vibrate, even when supported: whilst every other tremor, he observes, ceases, when the voluntary exertion for moving the limb stops ... but returns when we will the limb to move;" He also referred to van Swieten (1749) who had made similar observations about rest tremor. Sauvages had described the festihant gait which "I think cannot be more fitly named than hastening or hurrying Scelotyrbe (scelotyrbem festinantem, seufestiniam) ", as did Gaubius some ten years earlier (1758).