<P> Sir William Osler was interested in the disorder and chorea in general, and was impressed with Huntington's paper, stating that "In the history of medicine, there are few instances in which a disease has been more accurately, more graphically or more briefly described ." Osler's continued interest in HD, combined with his influence in the field of medicine, helped to rapidly spread awareness and knowledge of the disorder throughout the medical community . Great interest was shown by scientists in Europe, including Louis Théophile Joseph Landouzy, Désiré - Magloire Bourneville, Camillo Golgi, and Joseph Jules Dejerine, and until the end of the century, much of the research into HD was European in origin . By the end of the 19th century, research and reports on HD had been published in many countries and the disease was recognized as a worldwide condition . </P> <P> During the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance at the turn of the 20th century, HD was used tentatively as an example of autosomal dominant inheritance . The English biologist William Bateson used the pedigrees of affected families to establish that HD had an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern . The strong inheritance pattern prompted several researchers, including Smith Ely Jelliffe, to attempt to trace and connect family members of previous studies . Jelliffe collected information from across New York and published several articles regarding the genealogy of HD in New England . Jelliffe's research roused the interest of his college friend, Charles Davenport, who commissioned Elizabeth Muncey to produce the first field study on the East Coast of the United States of families with HD and to construct their pedigrees . Davenport used this information to document the variable age of onset and range of symptoms of HD; he claimed that most cases of HD in the USA could be traced back to a handful of individuals . This research was further embellished in 1932 by P.R. Vessie, who popularized the idea that three brothers who left England in 1630 bound for Boston were the progenitors of HD in the USA . The claim that the earliest progenitors had been established and eugenic bias of Muncey's, Davenport's, and Vessie's work contributed to misunderstandings and prejudice about HD . Muncey and Davenport also popularized the idea that in the past some HD sufferers may have been thought to be possessed by spirits or victims of witchcraft, and were sometimes shunned or exiled by society . This idea has not been proven . Researchers have found contrary evidence; for instance, the community of the family studied by George Huntington openly accommodated those who exhibited symptoms of HD . </P> <P> The search for the cause of this condition was enhanced considerably in 1968, when the Hereditary Disease Foundation (HDF) was created by Milton Wexler, a psychoanalyst based in Los Angeles, California, whose wife Leonore Sabin had been diagnosed earlier that year with Huntington's disease . The three brothers of Wexler's wife also suffered from this disease . The foundation was involved in the recruitment of over 100 scientists in the Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Project who over a 10 - year period worked to locate the responsible gene . </P> <P> Thanks to the HDF, the ongoing US - Venezuela Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Project was started in 1979, and reported a major breakthrough in 1983 with the discovery of the approximate location of a causal gene . This was the result of an extensive study focusing on the populations of two isolated Venezuelan villages, Barranquitas and Lagunetas, where there was an unusually high prevalence of the disease . It involved over 18,000 people--mostly from a single extended family . </P>

Short and long term effects of huntington's disease