<P> The history of Parkinson's disease expands from 1817, when British apothecary James Parkinson published An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, to modern times . Before Parkinson's descriptions, others had already described features of the disease that would bear his name, while the 20th century greatly improved knowledge of the disease and its treatments . PD was then known as paralysis agitans (shaking palsy in English). The term "Parkinson's disease" was coined in 1865 by William Sanders and later popularized by French neurologist Jean - Martin Charcot . </P> <P> Several early sources describe symptoms resembling those of PD . An Egyptian papyrus from the 12th century B.C. mentions a king drooling with age and the Bible contains a number of references to tremor . An Ayurvedic medical treatise from the 10th century B.C. describes a disease that evolves with tremor, lack of movement, drooling and other symptoms of PD . Moreover, this disease was treated with remedies derived from the mucuna family, which is rich in L - DOPA . Galen wrote about a disease that almost certainly was PD, describing tremors that occur only at rest, postural changes and paralysis . </P>

Where did parkinson's disease get its name