Parkinson Foundations in the United States

To the Editor:—  Although the victims of Parkinson's disease far out-numbered those of multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy combined, there was for a long time no Parkinson foundation in existence. During the course of a decade, my Parkinson exhibits at various medical conventions kept stressing that a foundation was sorely needed. They led to several abortive attempts to create a Parkinson foundation in 1954 and 1955, but nothing concrete materialized after months of deliberations. Finally, in 1957, Mrs. Jeanne Levey took up the challenge and two Parkinson foundations came into existence "almost overnight."¹Mrs. Levey had traveled far and wide during the preceding five years in search of better understanding of and treatment for her husband's illness. He had developed the first portable quartz string galvanometer, a model of which is now stored in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. In the early part of March 1957, she arranged