A 200-year history of Parkinson's disease

Abstract

In 1817, Dr. James Parkinson firstly described the concept, duration, and clinical characteristics of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, it was widely known until 1877 when it was named "Parkinson's disease" by Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot. In 1912, Frederic Henry Lewy, a neuropathologist, found a special abnormal protein in nerve cells of PD patients. Medical profession began to learn about the pathology of PD only when Konstantin Tretiakoff named the special abnormal protein "Lewy body (LB)" in 1919 and believed the main lesion of PD was in substantia nigra. In 1867, the German psychiatrist Leopold Ordenstein found that PD patients had symptoms of excitement of parasympathetic nerve, such as salivation, and treated them with belladonna alkaloids, thus creating a precedent for medical treatment of PD. After 1950's, the researchers gradually found that Lewy body was common in substantia nigra and locus coeruleus of PD patients and then gradually determined the pathological features of PD. The Swedish scientist Arvid Carlsson and Japanese neurologist Isamu Sano found dopamine abnormalities in the brain of PD patients, and thus researched and developed levodopa. PD has a history of 200 years, and we expect new research of PD studies.

DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2017.01.002