ABSTRACT
From 1775 to 1776, John Parkinson was the anatomical warden to the Company of Surgeons, which, when it received its Royal Charter in 1800, became the Royal College Surgeons. Little is known of Parkinson’s early education but based on his own writings he was well versed in Greek and Latin and also studied mathematics, the natural sciences and some French. Parkinson became one of the earliest medical students at the London Hospital Medical College when he studied there for six months in 1776. ‘Parkinson and Son’ was appointed ‘Surgeon, Apothocary, and Man-midwife’ to the poor of St. Leonard Shoreditch Workhouse Infirmary in 1813. Parkinson was a member of the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information. Considering the limited contemporaneous understanding of neurology and the fact that none of his patients underwent an autopsy, it is impressive that Parkinson was able to come so close to understanding of the disease.
