April 11th
Born 11 Apr 1755; died 21 Dec 1824 at age 69.
English doctor and amateur paleontologist. He took over general internal medicine from his father. He wrote a lesser-known monograph, an observation of the nature and treatment of gout (1805). He first recognized the rupture of the appendix as the cause of death and wrote the first scientific article on appendicitis (1812). In his essay on Shaking Paralysis (1817), he first described a neuromuscular disorder now known as Parkinson’s disease. Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are general slowing of movement, one-sided or slight tremor at rest, some stiffness in the limbs, gait or imbalance.”
