James Parkinson was born in Hoxton Square, London, in 1755. His most important medical work was ‘An Essay on the Shaking Palsy’ (1817). In this short essay, Parkinson gave the classic, albeit in modern terms limited, clinical description of the illness later termed ‘Parkinson's disease’: ‘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’.
