Observers of Parkinsonism, before Parkinson himself, had been content to 'spot' various characteristics (in much the same way as one 'spots' trains or planes), and then to arrange these characteristics in classificatory schemes (somewhat as a butterfly-spotter, or would-be entomologist, might arrange his specimens according to colour and shape). But there was a radical difference between Parkinson and these men - perhaps more radical than Parkinson himself allowed or admitted. It is true, in a sense, that Parkinson had many 'predecessors' (Gaubius, Sauvages, de la Noe, and others) who had observed and classified various 'signs' of Parkinsonism. But it was Parkinson who first saw every feature and aspect of the illness as a whole, and who presented it as a distinctive human condition or form of behaviour 5. Detailed descriptions had also appeared in the non-medical literature - as in Aubrey's description of Hobbes's 'Shaking Palsy'. Isolated symptoms and features of Parkinson's disease - the characteristic shaking or tremor, and the characteristic hurrying or festination of gait and speech - had been described by physicians back to the time of Galen. In 1817, Dr James Parkinson, a London physician, published his famous Essay on the Shaking Palsy, in which he portrayed, with a vividness and insight that have never been surpassed, the common, important, and singular condition we now know as Parkinson's disease.
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