Neurographs : a series of neurological studies, cases, and notes / Editor William Browning.

Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Neurographs : a series of neurological studies, cases, and notes / Editor William Browning. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    NOTE ON THE TEMPORAL, GEOGRAPHIC, AND RACIAL DISTRIBUTION OF HUNTINGTON'S CHOREA. The wide occurrence of this form of chorea has been noted by several writers (Schlesinger, King, et al.). And the appended bibliography warrants a further word, showing as it does its almost limitless range. How far back in time its existence can be traced has received little attention. Meynert, of Vienna (1885), speaks of a family in which it had occurred for a hundred years. Huntington carries back the Easthampton group nearly as long, and on the more positive medical basis of his grandfather's observation. Tilney shows {v. supra) in agreement with Jelliffe, that in this countrj'^ one line has existed from well back in the colonial period, and j'et with no indication of being nearer its source or of any variation in the strain. Neither the ordinary taints, as noted by Huntington, nor yet the biblical third and fourth generations measure the length of this shadow when once evoked. Much less than paresis is it to be considered an affection of modern times merelj^ From the lack of any known etiology but heredity, it might be expected to reach back indefinitely. On the other hand, so far as anything has been dis- covered, there is a surprising absence of historical reference to this condition. And cases, such as one given by Striim- pell above, suggest that it may occasionally originate de novo (not becoming a family affair unless in one young enough to transmit it). An old Easthampton tradition, as personally related by Dr. Huntington, is to the effect that this disorder came as a curse upon those who persecuted Roger Will-