George Huntington's Discovery of Chorea: A Historical Account

In 1872, while searching through medical records at the New York Asylum for Idiots, Dr. George Huntington came upon the hospital medical file of a man who had exhibited some rather unusual symptoms. While trying to explain the disorder, Dr. Huntington coined the term Chorea, meaning “dance-like” in Greek, to describe the uncontrollable flailing movements that the patient was experiencing.