In 1872 George Huntington described the disorder in his first paper “On Chorea” at the age of 22. Although huntington’s disease has been recognized as a disorder since at least the Middle Ages, the cause has been unknown until fairly recently. The first definite mention of HD was in a letter by Charles Oscar Waters, published in the first edition of Robley Dunglison’s Practice of Medicine in 1842.
In 1977, Congress established the Commission for the Control of Huntington’s Disease and Its Consequences, which made a series of important recommendations. Since then, Congress has provided consistent support for federal research, primarily through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the government’s lead agency for biomedical research on disorders of the brain and nervous system.