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Concept
James Parkinson
Summary
James Parkinson (11 April 1755 21 December 1824) was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist and political activist. He is best known for his 1817 work An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson's disease by Jean-Martin Charcot.
James Parkinson was born April 11, 1755, in Shoreditch, London, England. He was the son of John Parkinson, an apothecary and surgeon practising in Hoxton Square in London, and the oldest of five siblings, including his brother William and his sister Mary Sedgwick. 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.
In addition to his flourishing medical practice, Parkinson had an avid interest in geology and palaeontology, as well as the politics of the day.
Parkinson was a strong advocate for the underprivileged, and an outspoken critic of the Pitt government. His early career was marked by his being involved in a variety of social and revolutionary causes, and some historians think he most likely was a strong proponent for the French Revolution. He published nearly 20 political pamphlets in the post-French Revolution period, while Britain was in political chaos. Writing under his own name and his pseudonym "Old Hubert", he called for radical social reforms and universal suffrage.
Parkinson called for representation of the people in the House of Commons, the institution of annual parliaments. He was a member of several secret political societies, including the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information. In 1794, his membership in the organisation led to him being examined under oath before William Pitt and the Privy Council to give evidence about a trumped-up plot to assassinate King George III.
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