ABSTRACT
Theories on the etiology of Parkinson disease (PD) have changed since its first description. In the famous James Parkinson monograph (1) that gave the disease its name, Parkinson reported that “affliction to indulgence in spirituous liquors, another to long lying on the damp ground” were among the suggested causes of the disease. Yet by 1888, Gowers (2) reported that 15% of his patients had a family history. Indeed, today most investigators accept that PD is due to a mixture of genetic and environmental influences interacting with each other, where the relative role of each may change from individual to individual.
