In the 200th year since the publication of Essay on the Shaking Palsy, this talk explores James Parkinson’s contributions to the print culture of his day. Parkinson’s writings reveal the thoughts and projects of a socially engaged eighteenth-century apothecary-surgeon with diverse scientific interests.  When his Essay appeared in 1817, he was at least as well known for his radical political pamphleteering and geological communications as he was for his work as a doctor.