Question: who wrote the essay on the shaking palsy
Answer: James Parkinson FGS ( 11 April 1755 -- 21 December 1824 ) was an English surgeon , apothecary , geologist , palaeontologist , and political activist , who is best known for his 1817 work , An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in which he was the first to describe `` paralysis agitans '' , a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson 's disease by Jean - Martin Charcot .