Multiple Sclerosis New Hope and Practical Advice for People With MS and Their Families

Chapter 1 MS -- What Is It, Who Gets It, and Why?If ever a disease could be called fascinating, it would be multiple sclerosis. The volumes of available facts and figures give it an intriguing identity. We know, for example, that in the United States almost triple the number of MS cases are found above the thirty-seventh parallel (running from Santa Cruz, California, to Newport News, Virginia) as are found below it. In certain areas of the world, not a single case of MS has ever been reported. Certain races appear to be relatively immune. Some studies show that women from the upper echelons of society, aged twenty-five to thirty-five, form a noticeably high percentage of MS cases, a fact suggesting that MS is some kind of "elitist" disease. Why do all these facts consistently hold true? Scientists today are closing in on the answers to this and other perplexing questions.We now know what MS is, who gets it, and when, where, and possibly why. Some aspects of the disease, however, such as its cause, still remain a mystery. In fact, a researcher once compared it to the old Indian legend in which a group of blind men encounter an elephant. They can each describe the part of the animal they have touched, but none of them can explain the total picture. This is the case with MS.Still, scientists are closer than ever to describing the whole MS elephant. In January 1985 a team of researchers from Stanford University announced that they had wiped out a disease in mice that is similar to MS. We are truly on the threshold of discovery.Among the general public, MS is one of the most misunderstood diseases. Just think of the public service slogan: MS, the Crippler of Young Adults. That's a pretty gloomy label for a disease where 75 percent of those who have it will never need a wheelchair. Whether you've just been diagnosed as having MS or you've lived with it a while -- or even if the MS patient is someone you happen to care for -- it's important to know that misinformation is a greater enemy than the disease itself. So, while we can't provide you with a cure in these pages, we can give you the best tools to beat MS -- the facts.THE HISTORYThe MS story begins almost like a fairy tale, because once upon a time there was no MS -- not a case was known to medicine. Then, in the 1830s, two doctors in Europe began to write of a "new" disease, one never seen before. Jean Cruveilhier, professor of pathological anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris, is credited with the first clinical report in 1835. During routine autopsies, he observed some "brown patches" in the central nervous system and described them to the medical community. Simultaneously, Robert Carswell was commissioned by the museum at University College in London to show a collection of sketches of the central nervous system that he had drawn as a young medical student. Among the two thousand color pictures he had drawn while observing autopsies were some that included unexplained "spots." In 1838, Carswell published an atlas of his drawings, along with written descriptions. In one chapter he wrote, "The anterior surface of the spinal cord presented a number of spots, from a quarter of an inch to half an inch in breadth."Both Cruveilhier and Carswell only observed the effects of the disease during autopsies. A German doctor named Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs is given credit for the first diagnosis of the disease in a living subject. In 1849 he published a report more similar to the modern concept of MS. He wrote that it is more common in younger patients, that it is characterized by slow progression, that one side of the body is affected and then the other, and so on.At about this time, too, reports of this disease started to appear outside medical literature. Perhaps the most famous historical case is recorded in the diary and letters of Sir Augustus Frederick d'Este (1794-1848), a grandson of GRosner, Louis J. is the author of 'Multiple Sclerosis New Hope and Practical Advice for People With MS and Their Families', published 1992 under ISBN 9780671778095 and ISBN 0671778099.