Progressive and inheritable chorea had been described before 1872, and the most complete clinical description, even including the component of dementia, had been published in Norway by the district physician in Setesdal, Johan Christian LUND as early as in 1859. This report received no international attention and was certainly unknown to Huntington. It was not translated into English until 1959.
George Huntington born April 9, 1850, East Hampton, Long Island, New York; died March 3, 1916, Cairo, New York.
Huntington's choreaA rare disease of the central nervous system characterized by progressive dementia with grimacing, gesticulation, ataxic movements, finger twitching, dysarthria, speech disorders and other bizarre involuntary movements.
On February 15, 1872 George Huntington gave his classic presentation On Chorea at the Meigs and Mason Academy of Medicine, Middleport, Ohio. He was only twenty-two at the time. His lecture was received with acclaim, so he sent his manuscript to the Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia, where it appeared on 13 April 1872.
An abstract was published in the German literature by Adolf Kussmaul (1822-1902) and Carl Wilhelm Hermann Nothnagel (1841-1905) in 1872 and thereafter the eponym was increasingly used by European authors. Huntington recognised the hereditary nature of the condition, stating in his original paper "When either or both the parents have shown manifestations of the disease, one or more of the offspring invariably suffer from the condition. It never skips a generation to again manifest itself in another. Once having yielded its claims, it never regains them."
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