According to the work of German researcher Braak, the holy substantia nigra is the LAST part of the CNS to be affected. The first is the olfactory bulb closely followed by the myenteric plexus in the wall of the stomach. One of our first losses is our sense of smell. The usual dopamine explanation does not account for this.

The GI tract has a prominent role in PD. Everything from gastric emptying to constipation and some of it shows up before anything else. According to Michael Gershon, MD, author of "The Second Brain" the enteric nervous system rivals the spinal cord in complexity, operates independently of the brain, is connected to the brain by only a few thousand fibers of the vagus nerve, functions quite well if the vagus is severed, overrules the brain when appropriate, and produces a huge amount of neurotransmitters. Among other things.

Finally, it is interesting to contemplate the historical role of PD. We are all the time reading that forensic historians have determined that Flavius Floovius had an infected roobius leading to deadly impetion deficiency. Given the distinctive symptoms of PD, doesn't it seem odd that there is so little historical evidence for it? The first written description in the West was James Parkinson's in 1817. JP was a London physician for 40 to 50 years. He wrote many works besides "The Shaking Palsy" and was a keen observer. Yet he was only able to draw on SIX cases of PD for his paper and three of those were people he passed on the street and never saw again! Think about that. He lived in the crowded city of London for decades, was keenly watching people he passed, and felt that PD was interesting enough to write about. Yet he could only come up with three cases. Folks, PD didn't really exist before then.

In 1817, London was not a nice place to live. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Coal fired it and London's air reflected that. Killer smogs and so on. Soot in the air. Interesting stuff, soot and similar particulate matter. You breath it in. It sticks to your sinus mucosa and finds its way into your GI tract. What does it do there? Among other things, it not only easily penetrates the wall of the GI tract, it acts like a tiny sponge and carries toxins such as LPS into the body.

There are two non-western mentions of PD-like symptoms prior to 1817. One is the ancient Indus Valley works handed down in India and the other is China about 500 BC. What do they have in common with London 1817? The Indus Valley had an advanced copper smelting industry and we still admire the great bronzes of that Chinese period.