James Parkinson

James Parkinson palaeontologist
Known for	First description of Parkinson's disease
Spouse	Mary Dale ​ (m. 1783)​
Children	8
Signature

James Parkinson

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Early life

James Parkinson was born on 11 April 1755 in Shoreditch, London, England. He was the son of John Parkinson, an apothecary and surgeon practising in Hoxton Square in London,^[3] and the oldest of five siblings, including his brother William and his sister Mary Sedgwick.^[4] In 1784 Parkinson was approved by the City of London Corporation as a surgeon.

On 21 May 1783, he married Mary Dale, with whom he subsequently had eight children; two did not survive past childhood. Soon after he was married, Parkinson succeeded his father in his practice in 1 Hoxton Square.

Politics

In addition to his flourishing medical practice, Parkinson had an avid interest in geology and palaeontology, as well as the politics of the day.^[5]

Parkinson was a strong advocate for the underprivileged, and an outspoken critic of the

Parkinson called for representation of the people in the

pop-gun

to bring the king's reign to a premature conclusion. No charges were ever brought against Parkinson, but several of his friends languished in prison for many months before being acquitted.

Medicine

Parkinson turned away from his tumultuous political career, and between 1799 and 1807 published several medical works, including a work on

.

Parkinson was interested in improving the general health and well-being of the population. He wrote several medical doctrines that revealed a zeal for the health and welfare of the people similar to that expressed in his political activism. He was a crusader for legal protection for the mentally ill, as well as their doctors and families.

In 1812, Parkinson assisted his son with the first described case of appendicitis in English, and the first instance in which perforation was shown to be the cause of death.^[9]

He believed that any worthwhile surgeon should know shorthand, at which he was adept.

Parkinson's disease

Parkinson was the first person to systematically describe six individuals with symptoms of the disease that bears his name. In An Essay on the Shaking Palsy^[2] (1817), he reported on three of his own patients and three persons whom he saw in the street.^[10] He referred to the disease that would later bear his name as paralysis agitans, or shaking palsy.^[11] He distinguished between resting tremors and the tremors with motion.^[12] Jean-Martin Charcot coined the term "Parkinson's disease" some 60 years later.

Parkinson erroneously suggested that the tremors in these patients were due to lesions in the cervical spinal cord.^[13]

Science

Parkinson's interest gradually turned from medicine to nature, specifically the relatively new fields of geology and palaeontology. He began collecting specimens and drawings of

in the latter part of the 18th century. He took his children and friends on excursions to collect and observe fossil plants and animals. His attempts to learn more about fossil identification and interpretation were frustrated by a lack of available literature in English, so he took the decision to improve matters by writing his own introduction to the study of fossils.

In 1804, the first volume of his Organic Remains of a Former World was published. Gideon Mantell praised it as "the first attempt to give a familiar and scientific account of fossils". A second volume was published in 1808, and a third in 1811. Parkinson illustrated each volume and his daughter Emma coloured some of the plates. The plates were later reused by Gideon Mantell.^[14] In 1822, Parkinson published the shorter "Outlines of Oryctology: an Introduction to the Study of Fossil Organic Remains, especially of those found in British Strata".

Parkinson also contributed several papers to William Nicholson's "A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts", and in the first, second, and fifth volumes of the "Geological Society's Transactions". He wrote a single volume Outlines of Oryctology in 1822, a more popular work. On 13 November 1807, Parkinson and other distinguished gentlemen met at the Freemasons' Tavern in London. The gathering included such great names as Sir Humphry Davy, Arthur Aikin, and George Bellas Greenough. This was to be the first meeting of the Geological Society of London.^[15]

Parkinson belonged to a school of thought, catastrophism, that concerned itself with the belief that the Earth's geology and biosphere were shaped by recent large-scale cataclysms. He cited the Noachian deluge of Genesis as an example, and he firmly believed that creation and extinction were processes guided by the hand of God. His view on Creation was that each "day" was actually a much longer period, that lasted perhaps tens of thousands of years.

Death and memorials

Parkinson died on 21 December 1824, after a stroke that interfered with his speech. He bequeathed his houses in Langthorne to his sons and wife, and his apothecary's shop to his son John. His collection of organic remains was given to his wife, and much of it was sold in 1827; a catalogue of the sale has never been found. He was buried at St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch.^[16]

Parkinson's life is commemorated with a stone tablet inside the church of St Leonard's, Shoreditch, where he was a member of the congregation; the exact site of his grave is not known and his body may lie in the crypt or in the churchyard. A blue plaque at 1 Hoxton Square marks the site of his home. Several fossils were named after him. No portrait of him is known. A photograph sometimes identified as an image of him is of a dentist of the same name; he died before the invention of photography.^[17]

World Parkinson's Day is held each year on his birthday, 11 April.

Works

• An Address, to the Hon. Edmund Burke from the Swinish Multitude London, 1793.
• Medical admonitions addressed to families, respecting the practice of domestic medicine, and the preservation of health London, 1799. Fifth Edition, 1812
• Hints for the improvement of trusses; intended to render their use less inconvenient, and to prevent the necessity of an understrap. With the description of a truss of easy construction and slight expence [sic], for the use of labouring poor. London: Symonds. 1802.
• The Town and Country Friend and Physician. Philadelphia, 1803.
• Organic remains of a former world. An examination of the mineralized remains of the vegetables and animals of the antediluvian world; generally termed extraneous fossils. London: Robson. 1804. The first volume containing the vegetable kingdom, 1804. Second Edition 1833. The second volume containing the fossil zoophytes, 1808. Second Edition 1833. The third volume containing the fossil starfish, echini, shells, insects, amphibia, mammals &c. 1811
• Parkinson, James (1805). Observations on the nature and cure of gout; on nodes of the joints; and on the influence of certain articles of diet, in gout, rheumatism, and gravel. London: Symonds.
• Dangerous sports. A tale addressed to children. London: Symonds. 1807.
• An Essay on the Shaking Palsy. London: Sherwood Neely and Jones. 1817.
• Outlines of oryctology. An introduction to the study of fossil organic remains; especially those found in the British strata: intended to aid the student in his inquiries respecting the nature of fossils, and their connection with the formation of the earth. London: Sherwood Neely and Jones. 1822. Second Edition, 1830

References

Further reading

• Lewis, Cherry (2017). The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon. London: Icon.
  ISBN 978-1-78578-336-4
  .
• Morris, A. D. (1989). James Parkinson: His Life and Times. Birkhäuser.
  ISBN 978-0-8176-3401-8
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Parkinson.

• Works by or about James Parkinson at Wikisource
• Information sheet about James Parkinson published by Parkinson's UK.
• Works by James Parkinson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about James Parkinson at Internet Archive
• Works by James Parkinson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)