All,
The size of this list is, I am guessing, fast approaching 2000 PWP and/or CG.
We belong to this list because we have one of two relationships to Dr.
Parkinson's Collection of Symptoms 1. We got them; or 2. Someone we care for has
them.
That is all we have in common, at least initially when we first sign on. PD
strikes all sorts; it respects neither the powerful nor the powerless, neither
the strong nor the weak, neither the rich nor the poor, neither the friendless
nor the popular, neither the male nor the female, meither the workman nor the
housewife, and etc. (Walt Whitman would have loved it!)
The number of distinct ways of being a PWP might be calculated by multiplying
the number of kinds of people who become PWP times the number of possible
combinations of symptoms a PWP might have, that is, the number of kinds of
people who might get PD times the number of ways they might get it.
Imagine that there are only 50 distinct types of adults who are likely to become
a PWP. That's absurdly low. One left-handed red-haired high school male Latin
teacher who used to be a professional golfer in each of the 50 states of th
union would use the whole 50 without even consider age or marital status.
And, further, imagine that there are 7 major symptoms such that having any four,
or possibly more, is diagnostic. There are then
(7x6x5x4)/(4x3x2x1) ways to have 4 symptoms
= (7x6x5x4x3)/(5x4x3x2x1) ways to have 5 symptoms +
(7x6x5x4x3x2)/(6x5x4x3x2x1) ways to have 6 symptoms +
(7x6x5x4x3x2x1)/(7x6x5x4x3x2x1) ways to have 7 symptoms = 35 + 21
+ 7 +1 = 64 types of PD.
Well, 50 x 64 = 3200 ways to be a PWP, which not even considering CG, is larger
than our current list.
