from Viartis:
1st September 2009 - From the archives
leonardo da vinci's descriptions of parkinson's disease
The Italian artist, engineer and scientist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
also studied anatomy, physiology and medicine. Leonardo da Vinci kept secret
notebooks in which he wrote and sketched his ideas and observations, in
handwriting that only he could read. So keen was he to study the human body
that he went out at night to dissect human corpses. For more information go
to Leonardo da Vinci. Over 300 years before James Parkinson formally
described Parkinson's Disease, Leonardo da Vinci saw people whose symptoms
coincided with those seen in Parkinson's Disease. Leonardo wrote in his
notebooks that "you will see.....those who.....move their trembling parts,
such as their heads or hands without permission of the soul; (the) soul with
all its forces cannot prevent these parts from trembling." In a translation
of Da Vinci's notebooks "The movements of paralytics of those benumbed by
cold, whose head and members move without control of the soul, who cannot
stop the movements." The combination of difficulty with voluntary movement
("paraletici") and tremor ("tremanti') leave little doubt of the diagnosis
of Parkinson's Disease. At the end of his life Leonardo was unable to paint
due to the loss of control of movement in his hands. It has been suggested
that, by then, Leonardo had the disorder himself. Due to most of his
notebooks remaining secret for centuries, Leonardo did not receive any
credit for contributing to the recognition of Parkinson's Disease. In order
to refer to this article on its own click here.
Rayilyn Brown
Director AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
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