Abstract
James Parkinson’s Essay on the Shaking Palsy (1817) has long been considered the foundational text of the disease which now bears the author’s name. This paper shows how the Essay radically re-formulated a diverse array of human dysmobilities as a “species” of disease. Parkinson incorporated medical observation with a clear focus on patient experience and subjectivity in a deeply affecting narrative, fusing clinical and urban case-descriptions within the genre of a sentimental natural history. His detailed, diagnostic portrayal of the malady recast earlier descriptions of trembling, posture and gait disorder within a new narrative order, simultaneously recruiting reader involvement to the plight of sufferers. Hardly any clinical examination as we know it today undergirds what remains an exemplary account of disciplined medical witness. The Essay demonstrates the potential of case construction and powerful, sympathetic case writing to transform clinical understanding of a complex medical condition of long duration.