History of Huntington's Disease
George Huntington
Many people that lived with Huntington's disease before the 19th century were shunned or exiled by society because of the belief that they were witches or possessed by spirits. George Huntington began studying families with similar symptoms. He was the first to publish a thorough description of this disease in 1872. In 1911, Charles Davenport also studied Huntington's Disease and made important contributions to understanding the disease. His research proved that the disease was transmitted by an autosomal dominant gene. More advances were made in 1983 when the US-Venezuela Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Project discovered the approximate location of the affected gene. In 1993, they were able to pinpoint that location. The research has concluded that the disease can be found on Chromosome 4.