George Huntington was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 who contributed a classic clinical description of the disease that bears his name -- Huntington's disease

Huntington's disease

Huntington's disease, chorea, or disorder , is a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to cognitive decline and dementia. It typically becomes noticeable in middle age. HD is the most common genetic cause of abnormal involuntary writhing movements called chorea...

.

Huntington described this condition in the first of only two scientific papers he ever wrote. He wrote this paper when he was 22, a year after receiving his medical degree from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York. He first read the paper before the Meigs and Mason Academy of Medicine in Middleport, Ohio on February 15, 1872 and then published it in the Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia on April 13, 1872.

Huntington's father and grandfather, George Lee Huntington (1811–1881) and Abel Huntington (1778–1858), were also physicians in the same family practice. Their longitudinal observations combined with his own were invaluable in precisely describing this hereditary disease in multiple generations of a family in East Hampton

East Hampton (town), New York

The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...

 on Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

.

In a 1908 review, the eminent physician William Osler

William Osler

Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet was a physician. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital as the first Professor of Medicine and founder of the Medical Service there. Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet (July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a physician. He was...

 said of this paper: "In the history of medicine, there are few instances in which a disease has been more accurately, more graphically or more briefly described."

In 1874 George Huntington returned to Duchess County, New York to practice medicine. He joined a number of medical associations and started working for the Matteawan General Hospital. In 1908 the scientific journal Neurograph dedicated him a special edition.

George Huntington should not be confused with George Sumner Huntington

George Sumner Huntington

Dr. George Sumner Huntington was a medical doctor, a researcher into comparative anatomy, and a college professor...

 (1861–1927), the anatomist. (Both men attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University).

External links

• A Brief History of Huntington's Disease from HOPES: Huntington's Disease Outreach Project for Education at Stanford
• http://www.shv.ch/download/BiographyGeorgeHuntington.doc 'History of Medicine Bulletin - The Johns Hopkins University' : Much more biographical information.