How far down does the PD rabbit hole go?

Most people know what Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is and for those that don’t know, the blogs below that were written by my fellow students all give a very good description of PD. But what is not commonly know is how far back to PD go?
Parkinson’s disease was first formally recognized in James Parkinson’s “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy,” which was published in 1817. Parkinson (1755-1824) was a doctor in London who observed what are now known as the classic symptoms of PD in three of his patients and in three people he saw on the streets of the city. Parkinson’s essay contained clear descriptions of some of the main symptoms of Parkinson’s disease which are tremors, rigidity, and postural instability. He theorized that the disease developed because of a problem in the medulla of the brain. Although Parkinson insisted the medical community study this disease, his essay received little attention until 1861. It was then that French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot and his colleagues distinguished the disease from other neurological conditions and termed it “Parkinson’s disease.”

But this isn’t the first encounter with PD symptoms. Symptoms and possible treatments for Parkinson’s disease are talked about in Ayurveda, an ancient Indian medical practice that has been around since as early as 5000 BC. And a condition like Parkinson’s disease was mentioned in Nei Jing, which was the first Chinese medical text,  it is more than 2,500 years ago.
ANCIENT HISTORY
An ancient civilization in India practiced their medical doctrine called Ayurveda.  They described the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, which they called Kampavata as far back as 5000 B.C.  To treat Kampavata, they used a tropical legume known as Mucuna Pruriens, which they called Atmagupta. The seeds of Mucuna Pruriens are a natural source of therapeutic quantities of L-dopa. Mucuna pruriens is certainly the oldest known method of treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, and is still being used to treat Parkinson’s Disease.
It is claimed that there are references to the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease in both the old and new testaments of the Bible. Often cited as possible references to Parkinsonism is the following depiction of old age in the Old Testament: “When the guardians of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent” (Ecclesiastes 12: 3), and the following description in the New Testament “There was a woman who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit…..bent and completely incapable of standing erect” (Luke 13:11).
ANCIENT GREEKS
In the Iliad, which, along with the Odyssey are claimed to have been written by Homer in the eighth century B.C., the septuagenarian King Nestor describes symptoms that appear to be those of Parkinson’s Disease. He remarks that, despite the fact he still partakes of the armed struggle, he can no longer compete in athletic contests, “my limbs are no longer steady, my friend, nor my feet, neither do my arms, as they once did, swing light from my shoulders.”
ANCIENT ROME
Aulus Cornelius Celsus (c25BC-c50AD), although apparently not a physician himself, compiled an encyclopedia titled De artibus (25AD-35AD) that included De medicina octo libri (The Eight Books of Medicine). He advised against giving those who suffered “tremor of the sinews” with drugs that promoted urination and also against baths and dry sweating. Stress free lifestyles, rubbing of the limbs and exercise by ball games and walking were thought to help with symptoms. The patient could eat whatever he wanted, but sexual activity should be restricted. However if he does allow this activity, he should afterwards be rubbed in bed with olive oil, by boys, not men. (Not sure why that is but hey to each their own!)   Fine tremor was distinguished from a coarser shaking, which was independent of voluntary motion. It could be alleviated by the application of heat and by bloodletting.
Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease were described by the ancient Greek physician Galen (129-200) who worked in ancient Rome. He wrote of tremors of the hand at rest. He wrote extensively on disorders of motor function, including the book on tremor, palpitation, convulsion and shivering. He distinguished between forms of shaking of the limb on the basis of origin and appearance. “The aged”, he noted, exhibited tremor because of a decline in their power to control motion of their limbs. The key to overcoming tremor was to abolish the proximal cause, but for the aged, this was impractical. He related that a person suffering from “catoche” has wild, wide open eyes, that he lies rigid in bed, as if he were made of wood. He also suffers from tremor, constipation and certain psychiatric symptoms.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The Italian artist, engineer and scientist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) also studied anatomy, physiology and medicine. Leonardo da Vinci kept secret notebooks in which he wrote and sketched his ideas and observations. He saw people whose symptoms coincided with the tremors seen in Parkinson’s Disease. Leonardo wrote in his notebooks that “you will see…..those who…..move their trembling parts, such as their heads or hands without permission of the soul; (the) soul with all its forces cannot prevent these parts from trembling.”
There are examples of references to the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease in the plays of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). There is a reference to shaking palsy in the second part of Henry VI, during an exchange between Dick and Say. Say explains to Dick that it is shaking palsy rather than fear that was causing his shaking. Dick asks Say: “Why dost thou quiver, man?” Say responds: “The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.”
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer. He published books, The English Physitian (1652) and the Complete Herbal (1653). The Complete Herbal contains both pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge. Among the recommendations in Complete Herbal, he suggests sage for “sinews, troubled with palsy and cramp”. For centuries prior to this, Sage had also been recommended for tremor in the hands. Amongst other plant remedies Culpepper suggested for palsy and trembling were bilberries, briony (called “English mandrake”), and mistletoe. In the 1696 edition of his Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, a variety of substances were claimed to be useful in the treatment of “palsies”, the “dead palsy”, and “tremblings”. These included “oil of winged ants” and preparations including earthworms.
The Hungarian doctor Ferenc Pápai Páriz (1649-1716) described in 1690 in his medical text Pax Corporis not only individual signs of PD, but all four cardinal signs: tremor, bradykinesia (slowness of movement), rigor and postural instability. This was the first time that all the main symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease have been formally described. The book was published in Hungarian; however, because Hungarian is known by so few people, the description of Parkinson’s Disease was ignored in the medical literature. Not surprisingly, later descriptions of PD were wrongly claimed to be the first.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Francois Boissier de Sauvages de la Croix (1706-1767) provided one of the clearest descriptions of a parkinsonism-like condition in 1763. He spoke of a condition that he named “sclerotyrbe festinans” in which decreased muscular flexibility led to difficulties in the initiation of walking. Both of the cases he observed were in elderly people. His observations, along with those of Jerome David Gaubius (1705-1780) and Franciscus de la Boë (1614-1672) were subsequently cited by James Parkinson, because although none of them described the whole syndrome, they all described aspects of it.
THE FIRST CLAIMED CURE
The English physician John Elliotson (1791-1868) published pamphlets concerning the disorder from 1827 to 1831 in the Lancet, which largely consisted of case reports. However, some of those he described probably did not actually have PD. Amongst his preferred methods of treatment were bleeding, induction and maintenance of pus building, cauterization, purging, low diet and mercurialization (treating someone with mercury), silver nitrate, arsenic, zinc sulfate, copper compounds, and the administration of iron as a tonic with some porter, which is a kind of dark beer. Elliotson made the first known claimed cure. He suggested that many young patients could be cured, although unreliably, using the carbonate of iron. On another occasion, he reported that the “disease instantly and permanently gave way” when he treated a patient, who was resistant to all other forms of therapy, with iron. This was well over a century before iron was found to be essential for the formation of L-dopa.
THE FIRST NAMED PATIENT
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), a philosopher and diplomat, described in his letters from 1828 until his death in 1835, his own medical history, which gave a more complete description of the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease than had James Parkinson. They included resting tremor and especially problems in writing, called by him “a special clumsiness” that he attributed to a disturbance in executing rapid complex movements. In addition to lucidly describing akinesia, he was also the first to describe micrographia. He also noticed his typical parkinsonian posture. There were incidental references in the following decades to what may (or may not) have been some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease by Toulmouche (1833), Hall (1836, 1841), Elliotson (1839), Romberg (1846).
THE NAMING OF PARKINSON’S DISEASE
It was not until 1861 and 1862 that Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) with Alfred Vulpian (1826-1887) added more symptoms to James Parkinson’s clinical description and then subsequently confirmed James Parkinson’s place in medical history by attaching the name Parkinson’s Disease to the syndrome. Charcot added to the list of symptoms the mask face, various forms of contractions of hands and feet, akathesia as well as rigidity. In 1867 Charcot introduced a treatment with the alkaloid drug hyoscine (or scopolamine) derived from the Datura plant, which was used until the discovery of levodopa (L-Dopa) a century later.
THE FIRST KNOWN DEPICTIONS OF PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Paul Marie Louis Pierre Richer (1849-1933) was a French anatomist, physiologist, sculptor, anatomical artist, and assistant to Jean-Martin Charcot.  In 1880, Jean-Marie Charcot completed a full clinical description of Parkinson’s Disease. The symptoms were depicted by Paul Richer in drawings and a statuette of people with Parkinson’s Disease.  Along with a photograph, these are the first known depictions of Parkinson’s Disease.
 
http://www.everydayhealth.com/parkinsons-disease/history-of-parkinsons-disease.aspx
http://viartis.net/parkinsons.disease/history.htm