The description of all four cardinal signs of Parkinson's disease in a Hungarian medical text published in 1690

One of the most prevalent neurological disorders is Parkinson's disease (PD), characterized by four cardinal signs: tremor, bradykinesia, rigor and postural instability. Although individual signs of Parkinson's disease most frequently tremor have been described since ancient times, the first systematic description of the disease is attributed to James Parkinson in 1817. Here we present evidence that not only individual signs, but the disease itself with all four cardinal signs were described in 1690 by Ferenc Papai Pariz, in a Hungarian medical text over 120 years before the classical description of James Parkinson. In this article I draw the reader's attention to the descriptive chapter in Papal's book that was published in Hungarian, which because it is understood by so few people, has resulted in this description of PD being ignored in the medical literature. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.