Contursi Terme

No secure identification of Contursi Terme, where ancient remains confirm a settlement at the confluence of the Tanagro (ancient Tanager) with the Sele, is likely. The Roman Ursentum noted in Pliny's Natural History (III.2), is more usually identified with Caggiano.[http://www.albedimare.org/castrum/MH_topos.html#U Megale Hellas: Glossario dei Toponomastica Antica] The local historian A. Filomarino,Filomarino, Contursi figlia di Saginara Rome, 1923. based on etymologies of toponyms, placed the commune's origins as early as the fourth century AD, the result of efforts by the inhabitants of the former Saginara and Contursi to fortify a site that was destroyed by Alaric's Goths at the end of the fourth century. Under the Lombards it appears to have belonged to the gastaldate of Conza,[http://www.contursiterme.com/franco_pignata.html Franco Pignata "Il Sentiero dei passi perduti"] when a fortress was built in 840 by Orso, count of Conza, from whom the stronghold probably took its name Castrum comitis Ursi, the "castle of count Orso")Vito Lembo, op.cit. Orso took the part of his kinsman Siconulf of Salerno (839-51) in internecine wars with Radelchis I of Benevento, who had been a former gastaldo of Conza.

The later history of Contursi TermiThe history is taken from [http://www.contursiterme.com/storia_delle_terme.html Storia delle Termi] and from Vito Lembo, historical notes in Per la Campania, December 1905 ([http://www.contursiterme.com/vito_lembo.html on-line text]). formed a local part of the Principality of Salerno, which was retained as a title until the territory was divided in three by Charles II of Naples in 1287, Contursi passing to the prince of Citerione (or Citra) and held by the family Sanseverino. In 1348, Contursi was taken by Louis of Taranto, king of Naples by right of his wife Joanna; he passed the title to his adherents, the Origlia. In 1448 Antonio Sanseverino succeeded in reclaiming title to Contursi, but the Sanseverino heirs held it only until the early sixteenth century, under the Viceroys of Naples. From the seventeenth century the commune passed successively through a number of families, the Bernalli, Pepe, Ludovisi and Parisani Bonanno. The last to hold the contado before the reunification of Italy were the Pisani di Tolentino, marchesi di Caggiano.

The thermal baths, insecurely linked to notices by Roman writers, were described in a manuscript Balnea Contursi of 1231;The manuscript is conserved in the Archivio della Badia della SS. Trinità di Cava dei Tirreni ([http://www.contursiterme.com/storia_delle_terme.html Storia delle termi]). The fifteen thermal springs, with varying mineral content, have retained their curative reputation, for bathing, both in warm pools and in a cold plunge, and for drinking.

Families from the village have played an important role in the understanding of Parkinson's disease. In 1986, Larry Golbe, a doctor based at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, came across a family with six Parkinson's patients, and found that they had originated in Contursi.{{cite news |author= Jacobs, Eve |year= 2004 |url= http://www.umdnj.edu/umcweb/marketing_and_communications/publications/umdnj_magazine/fall2004/2.htm |title= Gene Hunter |work= UMDNJ Magazine |publisher= University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey |access-date= December 9, 2013 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130606071357/http://www.umdnj.edu/umcweb/marketing_and_communications/publications/umdnj_magazine/fall2004/2.htm |archive-date= June 6, 2013 }} A few months later he found a second family with several Parkinson's patients, who also had ancestors from the village. This prompted Golbe to collaborate with Giuseppe DiIorio at the University of Naples, to analyse the DNA from Contursani and people who had emigrated from the village across the world. They identified three families in Italy and three families in the US, all of whom were descendants from a single couple who lived in Contursi in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Of 400 members of this extended family, known as the "Contursi kindred", 61 are known to have had Parkinson's. This showed for the first time that Parkinson's could be inherited.{{Citation | last1 =Golbe | first1 =LI| year =1990 | title =A large kindred with autosomal dominant Parkinson's disease | periodical =Ann Neurol. | volume =27 | issue =3 | pages =276–82 | doi = 10.1002/ana.410270309| pmid =2158268 | last2 =Di Iorio | first2 =G | last3 =Bonavita | first3 =V | last4 =Miller | first4 =DC | last5 =Duvoisin | first5 =RC| s2cid =31767548|display-authors=etal}}

Geneticists Alice Lazzarini and William Johnson worked through the early 1990s trying to isolate the mutation that caused the disease. In 1996, a team led by Mihael Polymeropoulos at the National Institutes of Health located by linkage analysis the Parkinson's disease gene of the Contursi kindred on the long arm of human chromosome 4.{{cite journal|vauthors=Polymeropoulos MH, Higgins JJ, Golbe LI, Johnson WG, Ide SE, Di Iorio G | title=Mapping of a gene for Parkinson's disease to chromosome 4q21-q23. | journal=Science | year= 1996 | volume= 274 | issue= 5290 | pages= 1197–9 | pmid=8895469 | doi= 10.1126/science.274.5290.1197| s2cid=25330514 | url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8895469 |display-authors=etal}} In 1997, the same team identified a point mutation in the alpha-synuclein gene in the Contursi kindred as well as Greek pedigrees with Parkinson's disease.{{cite journal|vauthors=Polymeropoulos MH, Lavedan C, Leroy E, Ide SE, Dehejia A, Dutra A | title=Mutation in the alpha-synuclein gene identified in families with Parkinson's disease | journal=Science | year= 1997 | volume= 276 | issue= 5321 | pages= 2045–7 | pmid=9197268 | doi=10.1126/science.276.5321.2045|display-authors=etal| url=https://zenodo.org/record/1231112 }}{{cite journal| author=Polymeropoulos MH| title=Genetics of Parkinson's disease. | journal=Ann N Y Acad Sci | year= 2000 | volume= 920 | pages= 28–32 | pmid=11193165 | doi= 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb06901.x| s2cid=21926190 | url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11193165 | citeseerx=10.1.1.554.6455 }} The NIH team and a team led by Maria Grazia Spillantini reported on alpha-synuclein deposits in Lewy bodies as well as alpha-synuclein inclusions in other neurodegenerative disorders.{{cite journal|vauthors=Mezey E, Dehejia A, Harta G, Papp MI, Polymeropoulos MH, Brownstein MJ | title=Alpha synuclein in neurodegenerative disorders: murderer or accomplice? | journal=Nat Med | year= 1998 | volume= 4 | issue= 7 | pages= 755–7 | pmid=9662355 | doi=10.1038/nm0798-755| s2cid=46196799 | url=https://zenodo.org/record/1233447 }}{{cite journal|vauthors=Spillantini MG, Schmidt ML, Lee VM, Trojanowski JQ, Jakes R, Goedert M | title=Alpha-synuclein in Lewy bodies. | journal=Nature | year= 1997 | volume= 388 | issue= 6645 | pages= 839–40 | pmid=9278044 | doi=10.1038/42166 | doi-access=free }}

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{{Province of Salerno}}

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Category:Cities and towns in Campania

Category:Localities of Cilento

Category:Spa towns in Italy

Category:Genetic genealogy

Category:Parkinson's disease